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HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY, 

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A.JWU.,o<K^ 


-^ 


^-t^^^^^e_ 


Cj>^ 


JAMES   FREEMAN   CLAlfefflOV  20  1931  ^ 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY,  DIARY  AND 
CORRESPONDENCE 


EDITED  BY 

EDWARD   EVERETT  HALE 


BOSTON    AND    NEW    YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN   AND   COMPANY 

1892 


Copyright,  1891, 
By  HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  QO, 

All  rights  reserved. 


FOURTH    EDITION. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 
Electrotyped  aud  Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  &  Co. 


CONTENTS. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  Parentage 1 

II.  Newton 11 

III.  The  Latin  School 26 

IV.  Cambridge .34 

V.  Kentucky 50 

VI.  Life  in  Kentucky .66 

DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

VII.   Mr.  Clarke's  Early  Years 81 

VIII.  Journals  and  Letters.     1830-1840        ...        94 

IX.  The  Church  of  the  Disciples 135 

X.  Europe 171 

XI.  Meadville 186 

XII.  The  Church  of  the  Disciples.    1853    .        .        .      201 

XIII.  Anti-slavery 213 

XIV.  The  Unitarian  Church 251 

XV.   The  War 268 

XVI.  Education 292 

XVII.  Work  in  the  Pulpit 308 

XVIII.  Varied  Activities.     1865-1880        ....      323 

XIX.  Closing  Years.     1881-1888 357 

XX.  The  Man 389 

XXI.  The  End 408 

Writings  of  James  Freeman  Clarke         .        .        .        .      416 

Index 421 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PARENTAGE. 

Magnolia,  Mass.,  July  21,  1883. 

It  is  just  fifty  years  to-day  since  I  preacliecl  my  first 
sermon  in  Bernard  Whitman's  church  in  Waltham.  I 
shall  keep  the  anniversary  by  beginning  the  sketch  of 
my  life,  which  my  friends  have  thought  may  be  inter- 
esting. I  have  no  remarkable  events  or  adventures  to 
record.  But  I  have  lived  in  an  important  period ;  have 
known  many  eminent  men  and  distinguished  women; 
have  seen  great  changes  in  social  life,  in  religious  opin- 
ion, in  private  morals  and  public  manners.  If  I  can 
succeed  in  making  a  few  suggestive  pictures,  or  memory 
sketches,  it  may  be  a  gratification  to  my  children  and 
friends,  and  possibly  contribute  matter  for  the  future 
historian  of  this  period. 

In  looking  back  to  the  time,  fifty  years  ago,  when  I 
was  about  to  begin  my  work  in  life,  that  which  first 
strikes  me  is  this :  I  was  then  twenty-three  ;  and  that 
past  twenty-three  years  seemed  to  me  more  eventful 
and  longer  than  the  subsequent  fifty  appear  now.  I 
believe  I  felt  older  then  than  I  do  now.  I  seemed  to 
myself  to  have  gone  through  the  round  of  human  expe- 
rience. I  had  read  and  thought,  studied  and  medi- 
tated, mingled  in  society,  had  friendships  with  men  and 
women. 

What  subsequent  experiences  can  compare  with  those 
of  our  first  years,  when  we  have  just  entered  the  uni- 


2  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

verse,  caught  our  first  glimpse  of  nature,  been  amazed 
by  the  mystery  of  the  human  mind,  and  made  acquaint- 
ance with  poetry,  romance,  and  some  of  the  great  clas- 
sics of  ancient  and  modern  times  ?  The  boy  is  full  of 
hope  and  eager  expectation.  The  curtain  is  rising  on 
a  stage  where  he  looks  for  a  wonderful  drama.  As 
Schiller  says,  "  The  boy  sets  sail  on  the  ocean  of  life 
with  a  fleet  of  a  thousand  vessels  ;  the  old  man  reaches 
the  shore  at  last  rescued  on  a  single  plank.'' 

Wordsworth's  "Ode  on  the  Intimations  of  Immor- 
tality" contains  a  truth  which  our  experience  must 
confirm.  The  germs  of  all  that  we  are  to  be  begin  to 
unfold  in  our  childhood.  Those  shadowy  recollections 
are  the  master-lights  of  our  after-being.  The  truths 
which  awake  then  never  perish.  The  impressions  then 
made  on  the  soul  underlie  all  others,  and  determine 
largely  our  future  course. 

My  father,  Samuel  Clarke,  was  an  only  child.  His  far 
ther,  Samuel  Clarke,  had  one  sister  (Hepzibah  Clarke, 
afterward  Mrs.  Swan),  but  no  brother.  Both  were  born 
in  Boston.  My  great-grandfather,  Barnabas  Clarke,  was 
born  in  Harwich,  on  Cape  Cod,  and  was  for  some  years 
a  shipmaster.  Afterward  he  became  a  merchant  in 
Boston,  marrying  Hepzibah  Barrett  in  1748. 

Barnabas  Clarke  was  a  lineal  descendant  of  Thomas 
Clarke,  who  is  reported,  by  what  Thacher  calls  "  a  well 
received  tradition  "  in  Plymouth,  to  have  been  the  mate 
of  the  Mayflower,  and  "the  first  who  landed  on  Clarke's 
Island"  in  Plymouth  harbor.  If  so,  he  returned  to 
England  with  the  vessel,  for  he  came  over  as  a  settler 
in  the  Anne,  in  July,  1623.  He  lived  in  Plymouth,  Har- 
wich, and  Boston.  He  died  in  Plymouth,  aged  ninety- 
eight,  in  the  year  1697,  and  his  grave  and  gravestone 
may  be  seen  on  the  summit  of  Burying-ground  Hill. 

My  grandfather,  Samuel  Clarke,  born  in  Boston  in 
1754,  was  at  the  Boston  Latin  School  in  1766.  At  the 
age  of  nineteen  he  was  sailing  as  master  and  supercargo 


PARENTAGE.  3 

of  vessels  belonging  to  his  father,  Barnabas  Clarke,  and 
William  Dennie.  He  was  a  man  of  ability,  energy,  and 
determination. 

He  married,  in  1778,  Martha,  daughter  of  Obadiah 
Curtis.  The  same  year  he  went  as  major  of  one  of 
Governor  Hancock's  regiments  to  Ehode  Island,  acting 
in  cooperation  with  the  troops  of  La  Fayette.  The  regi- 
ment lay  under  canvas  at  Newport  during  the  terrible 
gale  of  August  12,  1778,  long  known  as  the  "  French 
Storm."  He  here  contracted  disease  of  the  lungs,  of 
which  he  died  in  1780,  in  his  house  in  School  Street. 

His  widow  long  preserved  his  silk  sash,  helmet,  and 
military  regimentals.  These  I  used  to  see  in  the  garret 
of  the  house,  where,  as  a  child,  I  loved  to  rummage 
among  the  high -heeled  shoes,  and  smoke -jacks,  and 
other  relics  of  the  past. 


THE   CURTIS    FAMILY. 

My  father's  mother,  who,  after  my  grandfather 
Clarke's  death  in  1780,  married  James  Freeman  in 
1788,  was  the  daughter  of  Obadiah  Curtis  and  Martha 
Buckminster,  of  Framingham.  Obadiah  Curtis  was  a 
lineal  descendant  of  William  Curtis,  who  emigrated 
from  Nazing,  Essex  County,  England,  in  the  ship  Lyon, 
which  reached  Boston,  September  16,  1632.  His  wife 
was  sister  of  John  Eliot,  the  apostle  to  the  Indians, 
who  also  came  from  Nazing. 

The  descendants  of  William  Curtis  are  numerous, 
and  many  of  them  are  still  living  in  Boston  and  Eox- 
bury.  .  .  . 

Obadiah  Curtis  probably  owed  his  rise  in  the  world 
to  the  energy  and  ability  of  his  wife,  who  belonged  to 
the  somewhat  remarkable  family  of  Buckminsters  of 
Framingham. 

After  their  marriage  they  went  to  Boston;  and,  to 
help  her  husband,  Mrs.  Curtis  opened  a  shop  for  the 


4  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

sale  of  English  goods  at  what  is  now  the  corner  of 
Bromfield  Street  and  Washington  Street.  Having  ac- 
cumulated a  competence  Mrs.  Curtis  and  her  husband 
moved  to  Newton  in  1807,  bought  two  or  three  acres  of 
the  estate  of  my  father,  who  was  their  grandson,  and 
built  a  house  in  which  they  ended  their  days.  .  .  . 

Obadiah  and  Martha  Curtis  had  four  children,  Anna, 
Martha,  Sarah,  and  Thomas.  Anna  married  the  Rev. 
Jonathan  Homer ;  and  it  was  said  of  her  that  if  she 
heard  of  any  family  in  the  parish  who  needed  better 
food  than  they  could  afford  to  buy,  she  would  send  to 
them  the  joint  from  the  spit  in  her  own  kitchen ;  and 
her  husband,  good  man,  meditating  on  Erasmus  and 
Beza,  would  make  his  dinner  of  boiled  potatoes,  and 
never  miss  the  meat. 

Martha,  the  second,  was  my  grandmother,  a  woman 
of  strong  will  and  quick  temper,  a  little  inclined  to 
have  her  own  way.  But  she  was  affectionate  to  those 
she  loved,  and  as  generous  to  the  poor  as  my  aunt 
Homer.  Every  Sunday  she  was  driven  from  Newton 
to  Boston,  between  six  and  seven  miles,  in  the  ancient 
carriage,  that  she  might  attend  services  at  her  husband's 
church,  King's  Chapel.  This  was  in  summer,  which 
Dr.  and  Mrs.  Freeman  always  passed  on  the  old  estate 
at  Newton.  During  three  or  four  months  of  winter, 
they  lived  in  Boston.  My  great-aunt,  Sally  Curtis,  the 
third  daughter,  was  of  a  more  poetic  nature  than  the 
others.  In  her  small  collection  of  books,  I  recollect 
Shenstone  and  other  poets,  her  favorite  passages  care- 
fully underlined,  after  the  manner  of  that  day.  In  the 
garden  borders  she  diligently  cultivated  flowers  which 
delighted  my  youthful  eyes. 

Thomas  Curtis  was  a  merchant  in  Boston,  and  a  ship- 
owner, doing  a  large  business.  He  lived  on  the  highest 
point  of  Somerset  Street,  next  to  the  house  of  his 
partner,  Caleb  Loring.  He  had  five  sons  and  three 
daughters,  which  made  his  house  a  very  entertaining 


PARENTAGE.  6 

place  to  visit.  Every  Christmas  they  had  a  family  fes- 
tival prolonged  till  late  at  night,  at  which  the  Lorings, 
Stevensons,  and  other  relatives,  were  present,  and  the 
conversation  was  always  bright  and  entertaining. 

The  eldest  son,  Charles  Pelham  Curtis,  is  well  re- 
membered as  a  distinguished  member  of  the  Boston 
Bar,  and  very  brilliant  in  conversation. 

Another  son,  Thomas  Buckminster,  was  first  an  offi- 
cer in  the  navy,  then  master  of  merchant  vessels,  and 
finally  merchant  and  banker. 

James  Freeman  Curtis,  the  third  son,  was  a  hand- 
some and  high-spirited  youth.  He  was  a  midshipman 
on  the  Chesapeake,  when  she  was  taken  by  the  Shan- 
non, off  Boston,  but  had  his  revenge  by  being  an 
officer  of  the  Constitution  when  she  took  the  Cyane 
and  Levant.  Afterward  he  commanded  an  expedition 
against  the  pirates  in  the  West  Indies,  and  took  by  as- 
sault one  of  their  strongholds.  He  spent  some  weeks 
at  our  house  in  Newton,  when  I  was  a  child,  and  built 
for  us  a  small  brig  and  a  three-masted  man-of-war, 
about  four  feet  long,  which  made  a  splendid  appearance 
riding  at  anchor  on  our  fish-pond. 

Stories  of  sea-life  made  a  part  of  the  education  of 
Boston  boys  sixty  years  ago,  even  of  those  who  did  not 
go  to  sea  themselves.  .  .  . 

My  father.  Dr.  Samuel  Clarke,  was  born  in  Boston,  in 
1779,  in  a  house  in  School  Street,  which  belonged  to 
his  father,  who  died  when  his  son  was  a  year  old.  My 
father,  like  my  grandfather  Clarke,  myself,  and  my 
brothers,  went  to  the  Boston  Latin  School.  He  ought 
to  have  gone  to  college,  for  he  had  a  taste  for  study  5 
but  his  property  was  in  the  hands  of  his  guardian,  who 
refused  to  advance  money  for  his  education.  He  there- 
fore entered  the  store  of  Joseph  Coolidge,  importer  of 
British  goods.  About  1800,  he  went  into  that  business 
with  Joseph  Coolidge,  Jr.  In  1804,  he  obtained  pos- 
session of  his  property,  and  returned  to  Newton,  where 


6  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

he  built  a  house  in  a  beautiful  situation.^  Next  year 
he  married  Eebecca  Parker  Hull,  daughter  of  William 
Hull,  a  bright  young  girl,  just  out  of  Mrs.  Kawson's 
school.  They  were  well  adapted  to  each  other,  being 
counterparts  in  disposition.  The  picture  of  my  father 
by  Malbone  represents  him  as  a  young  man  of  fine 
features  and  intelligent  face.  He  was  reserved  and 
silent,  while  my  mother  was  very  sociable.  Wherever 
she  went  she  made  acquaintances.  She  could  not  go  a 
mile  or  two  from  home  without  bringing  back  a  history 
of  curious  people  she  had  met,  and  strange  adventures 
she  had  encountered.  She  lived  in  many  places,  —  in 
Newton,  Mass.  ;  in  Boston ;  in  Vermont ;  in  New  Hamp- 
shire ;  in  Chicago,  Illinois ;  Newport,  R.  I.  ;  and  in 
Italy.  She  wrote  to  me  from  Eome,  "  I  am  a  Eoman 
citizen ;  I  know  it,  for  I  have  just  paid  my  tax-bill." 
Everywhere  she  made  herself  at  home,  and  found 
friends.  Everywhere  she  took  an  interest  in  the  un- 
fortunate, and  exerted  herself  energetically  in  their 
behalf. 

Having  one  or  two  old  colored  people  as  pensioners 
she  was  led  to  think  that  there  ought  to  be  a  home  in 
Boston  for  old  colored  women.  It  was  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Civil  War,  and  many  of  us  thought  that  the 
attempt  i,o  establish  such  a  home  would  be  more  suc- 
cessful if  postponed.  But  my  mother  was  no  tempo- 
rizer. She  made  me  bring  up  the  subject  at  one  of 
the  Wednesday  evening  meetings  of  the  Church  of  the 
Disciples  ;  asked  Mr.  Grimes,  the  minister  of  the  col- 
ored people's  church,  to  be  present,  and  to  state  the 
facts  within  his  knowledge  to  show  the  need  of  such 
an  institution ;  interested  Governor  Andrew,  Dr.  and 
Mrs.  Samuel  Cabot,  and  others  ;  and  by  their  help  the 
institution  was  established,  and  the  old  colored  women 
were  installed  in  their  comfortable  home.     My  mother 

1  This  house  was  not  long  after  bought  by  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Freeman, 
and  this  was  their  home  as  long  as  they  lived. 


PARENTAGE.  7 

said  to  her  daughter  in  her  last  sickness,  "  Sarah,  I  wish 
carriages  to  be  sent  to  take  the  old  colored  women  to 
my  funeral.  I  think  it  will  be  a  great  entertainment 
to  them.     They  do  not  have  many  amusements." 

Two  years  after  their  marriage,  my  father  and  mother 
moved  to  a  farm  in  Maidstone,  Vermont,  near  Canada, 
situated  on  an  interval  of  the  Connecticut  Eiver.     My 
father's  object  was  to  raise  merino  sheep,  the  wool  of 
which  was  very  valuable.     The  young  couple  drove  all 
the  way  in  a  sort  of  buggy  wagon,  drawn  by  two  horses, 
harnessed  tandem.     It  is  said  that  their  carriage  was 
the  first  that  ever  passed  through  the  White  Mountain 
Notch.i     My  mother  had  with  her  an  infant,  only  a  year 
old.     The  house  was  lonely,  two  or  three  miles  distant 
from  any  other.     It  was  hard  to  get  any  domestics. 
The  bears  and  wolves  killed  the  sheep.     The  experi- 
ment was  unsuccessful,  and  in  a  year  or  two  my  parents 
returned  to  Newton.    The  best  thing  they  brought  back 
from  Vermont  was  a  ghost  story,  which  my  mother 
used  to  tell  with  much  spirit.     Their  only  domestic,  a 
young  woman,  was  taken  sick,  and  died.     My  father 
had  to  go  some  distance  to  find  a  carpenter  to  make  the 
coffin,  and  my  mother  was  left  alone  with  her  infant. 
Evening  came  on,  and  my  father  had  not  returned.     All 
at  once  an  unexpected  knock  Avas  heard.     It  was  unex- 
pected, for  few  visitors  ever  found  their  way  to  the 
house.     My  mother  went  to  the  outer  door,  but  there 
was  no  one  there,  or  anywhere  in  sight.     She  returned 
to   the  sitting-room,  and  directly  the   knocking   came 
again,  louder  than  before,  and  the  door  into  the  room 
where  the  body  of  the  young  woman  was  lying  slowly 
opened.     My  mother,  thoroughly  frightened,  seized  her 
child,  and  ran  out  of  the  house,  with  the  wild  purpose 
of  going  to  the  nearest  neighbor.     As  she  went  round 
the  house,  she  heard  the  knocking  again,  close  to  her. 
Looking   back   she    saw   a  large   merino   ram   butting 
^  That  is,  the  first  pleasure  carriage. 


8  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

against  the   house ;   which,   being   slightly  built,  was 
shaken  by  the  shock. 

My  father  was  a  man  of  varied  talents.  He  was  able 
to  excel  in  so  many  directions  that  he  never  could  limit 
himself  to  one.  He  was  inventor,  architect,  artist,  me- 
chanic, physician,  lawyer,  chemist,  wool-raiser.  But  no 
sooner  had  he  succeeded  in  starting  an  enterprise  than 
he  lost  his  interest  in  it,  and  wished  to  do  something 
else.  His  pleasure  was  in  originating  and  inventing, 
not  in  executing.  But  he  had  a  very  practical  know- 
ledge in  many  arts.  He  understood  machinery,  and  built 
mills  on  new  plans.  He  painted  portraits  in  oils,  and 
made  effective  sketches  with  the  pencil.  In  Vermont, 
he  presided  with  dignity  as  a  judge.  He  was  one  of 
the  first,  if  not  the  first,  in  this  country  to  whiten  wax, 
to  grind  drugs  by  machinery,  sublimate  calomel,  and 
manufacture  lunar  caustic,  tartaric  acid,  and  other  chem- 
icals. As  a  physician,  he  anticipated  the  present  belief 
in  the  relative  uselessness  of  drugs.  He  gave  very  little 
medicine,  and  depended  in  his  practice  on  the  influence 
of  proper  food,  air,  exercise,  and  mental  conditions.  He 
brought  hope  and  courage  to  the  sick-room,  and  his 
patients  were  his  friends.  His  temper  was  singularly 
placid,  and  he  had  the  rare  gift  of  perfect  equanimity. 
He  was  a  man  of  few  words,  very  reserved,  and  my 
mother  carried  on  most  of  the  conversation.  He  was 
as  fond  of  solitude  as  she  of  society.  I  find  in  myself 
both  tendencies.  I  can  be  very  happy  alone.  When 
taking  a  walk,  or  writing,  or  studying,  I  prefer  entire 
solitude.  Thus  I  love  to  write  my  sermons  before 
breakfast,  in  the  silence  of  the  early  day.  This  I  in- 
herit from  my  father.  But,  like  my  mother,  I  enjoy 
society,  and  love  to  talk.  Dearly  as  I  love  nature,  hu- 
manity has  a  greater  charm  for  me.  Landing  once  on 
Tower  Stairs  in  a  dense  and  dirty  fog,  I  found  myself 
filled  with  a  sudden  exhilaration.  I  sought  to  analyze 
the  feeling.     Why  should  I  be  so  pleased  at  arriving  in 


PARENTAGE.  9 

London?  There  was  no  one  there  I  wished  to  see, 
scarcely  any  one  whom  I  knew.  At  last  I  discovered 
that  my  pleasure  came  because  I  found  myself  in  the 
midst  of  so  many  human  beings.  And  though  there 
was  in  London  extreme  misery,  and  much  of  it,  yet,  of 
necessity,  the  joy  of  life  must  much  predominate. 

My  father  took  pleasure  in  the  details  of  work,  in- 
vented the  machinery  for  his  mills,  understood  the 
properties  of  iron,  steel,  wood,  stone.  He  had  a  fine 
astronomical  telescope,  through  which,  when  I  was  a 
very  little  boy,  he  showed  me  the  rings  of  Saturn.  He 
took  an  interest  in  science  and  its  discoveries.  Before 
phosphorus  matches  came,  and  while  we  still  depended 
on  flint,  steel,  and  tinder-box,  he  lighted  his  candles  by 
a  jet  of  hydrogen  thrown  on  platina  sponge.  An  old 
man,  who  had  been  my  father's  foreman  during  many 
years,  said  to  me,  as  we  stood  beside  his  coffin :  "  When 
your  father  talked  with  carpenters  they  thought  he 
must  be  of  their  trade.  It  was  the  same  with  black- 
smiths, or  carriage-makers,  or  masons.  He  seemed  to 
know  every  man's  trade  as  well  as  the  mechanic  him- 
self." 

But  notwithstanding  these  multifarious  gifts  and  at- 
tainments, and  though  he  was  a  very  hard  worker  all 
his  life,  as  well  as  economical  in  his  habits,  he  never 
acquired  a  competence. 

In  fact,  the  estate  which  he  inherited  from  his  father 
was  gradually  lost  by  various  disasters.  Shortly  before 
his  death,  a  fire  destroyed  the  chemical  works  and 
mills  in  which  he  had  invested  most  of  his  remaining 
property.  His  insurance  had  just  expired,  and  the  loss 
was  total.  But  his  equanimity  did  not  fail  him.  The 
fire  was  in  the  night,  and  I  did  not  arrive  at  the  place 
until  everything  was  burned  to  the  ground.  The  fire- 
men had  gone,  and  I  found  my  father,  alone,  gazing  at 
the  ruins.  When  he  saw  me,  he  simply  said,  with  a 
grave  smile :  ''  We  may  call  this,  I  suppose,  the  abomi- 


10  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

nation  of  desolation."  This  was  all  his  comment. 
When  my  mother  found  that  the  burning  of  the  chem- 
ical works  had  left  my  father  without  property,  she 
determined  to  do  something  to  support  the  family  her- 
self. She  hired  a  house  in  Ashburton  Place,  Boston, 
and  took  boarders.  Her  friends  assured  her  that  no- 
thing could  be  made  by  keeping  boarders ;  but  she  was 
hopeful ;  and  though  for  some  time  she  found  it  diifi- 
cult  to  let  her  rooms,  she  finally  succeeded.  She  had 
among  her  boarders  those  who  became  her  warm  friends. 
Among  them  was  Jared  Sparks,  the  historian ;  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Devens  and  their  children,  one  of  whom  is  General 
Devens  ;  the  three  daughters  of  Dr.  Nathaniel  Peabody, 
Miss  Elizabeth  P.  Peabody,  Miss  Mary  Peabody,  after- 
wards Mrs.  Horace  Mann,  and  Miss  Sophia  Peabody, 
afterwards  Mrs.  Nathaniel  Hawthorne.  Horace  Mann 
was  also  a  boarder,  as  was  Mr.  Edward  S.  Eand. 

I  do  not  know  that  our  family  were  ever  happier 
than  in  those  days.  We  were  all  poor,  but  all  who 
could  were  doing  something  to  support  themselves. 
My  sister  gave  lessons  in  drawing.  Two  of  my  brothers 
were  doing  what  they  could.  My  eldest  brother  Sam 
was  confined  to  his  bed  by  rheumatism.  But  though  a 
great  sufferer,  he  was  always  cheerful,  and  when  we 
assembled  in  his  room  in  the  evening,  he  was  the  most 
entertaining  member  of  the  group. 

After  my  grandfather  Freeman's  death,^  my  mother 
gave  up  her  boarding-house,  and  returned  to  Newton  to 
take  care  of  my  grandmother  Freeman  in  her  declining 
years. 

1  November  14,  1835. 


CHAPTER  11. 

NEWTON. 

The  town  of  Newton,^  in  which  I  passed  the  earliest 
years  of  my  life,  and  which  was  my  real  home  until  I 
went  to  Kentucky  in  1833,  was  a  curious  and  interest- 
ing New  England  community  of  the  post-Kevolutionary 
period.  It  was  thinly  settled  by  farmers,  market  gar- 
deners, and  others,  who  were  neither  poor  nor  rich,  but 
able  to  support  themselves  and  their  families  by  con- 
stant labor.  They  were  industrious,  frugal,  honest,  and 
conservative  in  their  habits  and  opinions.  Like  most 
of  the  people  in  the  country  towns  of  Massachusetts, 
they  were  Federalists,  having  a  great  horror  of  Jeffer- 
son and  Madison.  They  went  to  church  regularly,  at- 
tending without  fail  the  two  services  in  the  parish 
church.  To  keep  the  Puritan  Sabbath  and  go  to  church 
twice  a  day  were  the  sacraments  of  their  religion. 
Beyond  this  there  was  little  religious  activity  of  any 
kind.  Eevivals  were  unknown ;  Sunday-schools  had 
not  been  invented ;  Bible  societies  and  missionary  soci- 
eties were  in  their  infancy.  The  towns  were  divided 
into  parishes,  and  each  parish  had  its  Congregational 
church,  supported  by  taxation.  The  Congregational 
Church  was  the  established  church  maintained  by  law. 
Every  inhabitant  of  the  town,  no  matter  what  his  faith 
or  his  unbelief,  was  taxed  to  support  the  church  of  his 
parish.  After  a  while  the  law  was  altered  so  as  to 
allow  him  "  to  sign  off,''  that  is,  to  make  a  formal  de- 
claration of  his  intention  to  pay  his  tax  to  some  other 

^  This  chapter  of  the  Autobiography  was  beg-un  July  3,  1884. 


12  AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 

society  in  the  town.^  Ours  was  the  East  Parish  of 
Newton,  and  during  all  my  childhood  my  great-uncle, 
Dr.  Jonathan  Homer,  was  its  sole  pastor.  The  only 
other  religious  society  in  the  large  region  which  con- 
stituted the  parish  was  a  small  Baptist  church.  This 
was  placed  by  the  side  of  a  pond,  where  the  immersions 
took  place.  But  these  were  infrequent ;  the  society 
was  not  aggressive,  and  they  were  looked  upon  much 
as  we  should  have  regarded  a  body  of  Italians  or  a 
colony  of  Portuguese  who  might  have  settled  among 
us.  Their  ways  were  not  our  ways,  nor  their  thoughts 
our  thoughts.  We  little  dreamed  that  the  time  would 
come  when  a  "  History  of  Newton  "  would  be  written, 
chiefly  occupied  with  biographies  of  Baptist  preachers 
and  professors,  and  in  which  the  Baptist  Theological 
School  would  be  described  as  the  most  important  insti- 
tution of  the  town.  But  in  my  boyhood  this  was  all  in 
the  future.  We  never  thought  of  going  anywhere  but 
to  the  parish  church.  There  the  population  assembled 
every  Sunday,  except  in  cases  of  severe  sickness.  Dr. 
Homer  mounted  the  pulpit,  and  proceeded  to  carry  on 
the  service  in  a  way  altogether  his  own.  He  was  a 
kind-hearted,  good  man,  and  much  loved  by  the  people. 
They  sat  quietly  while  he  harangued,  though  they  could 
not  possibly  have  understood  much  of  what  he  was  say- 
ing. But  that  made  no  difference.  Their  duty  was  to 
go  to  church,  and  sit  there  for  an  hour  or  two,  and  they 
did  it  faithfully.  It  was  not  their  duty  to  understand 
what  they  heard.  Dr.  Jonathan  Homer  was  one  of  the 
most  absent-minded  of  men ;  more  like  Dominie  Samp- 
son than  any  one  else  I  have  known.  If  he  met  you 
on  the  road  he  would  begin  to  say  aloud  what  he  was 
meditating.  For  example,  he  might  begin,  without 
preface,  thus  :  "  Why  Beza  should  have  given  that  ren- 
dering of  Corinthians  I  cannot  say.  Possibly  he  may 
have  found  it  in  Erasmus,  though  I  have  not  been  able 
^  Or,  eventually,  to  some  other  society  in  tlie  State. 


NEWTON.  13 

to  trace  it  in  either  of  the  early  editions.  Sir  Isaac 
Coffin  has  promised  to  send  me  the  first  Geneva ;  but 
Tyndall  would  be  better."  Having  made  these  cursory 
remarks  he  would  pass  on.  He  was  very  faithful  in 
pastoral  visiting,  and  if  he  found  any  one  in  sickness 
or  trouble  he  would  forget  Beza,  and  give  him  some 
comforting  words  of  the  Lord  Christ.  Of  a  summer 
day  he  might  often  be  seen  going  on  a  gentle  trot  along 
the  road,  his  gingham  dressing-gown  floating  out  behind 
him  like  a  banner.  He  would  turn  into  the  house  of  a 
parishioner,  and  if  he  found  no  one  in  the  sitting-room, 
would  go  into  the  kitchen,  all  unconscious  of  any  im- 
propriety. 

The  Congregational  ministers  in  each  parish,  being 
supported  by  taxation  of  all  the  property  in  the  parish, 
were  very  independent.  They  could  not  be  displaced 
except  for  some  serious  offense,  which  was  a  very  rare 
event.  They  were  all  graduates  of  some  college,  and 
learned  according  to  the  scholarship  of  their  day.  Their 
practical  independence  did  not  produce  indolence  or 
indifference  to  their  duty.  But  it  often  developed  ec- 
centricity. Every  clergyman  was  a  sort  of  king  in  his 
parish.  If  his  tendencies  were  toward  self-assertion, 
he  might  become  arbitrary  and  domineering ;  if  un- 
checked by  regard  for  public  opinion  and  fear  of  ridicule, 
he  might  develop  certain  oddities  of  speech  and  be- 
havior. Many  of  them  remained  in  the  same  parish  for 
more  than  half  a  century,  and  christened,  married,  and 
buried  two  or  three  generations.  They  directed  educa- 
tion in  the  schools,  guided  the  political  course  of  their 
parishioners  in  the  town  meeting,  were  an  authority  to 
be  consulted  in  practical  as  well  as  religious  and  moral 
questions.  They  introduced  improvements  in  agricul- 
ture and  gardening,  and  communicated  to  their  flocks 
whatever  important  discoveries  they  met  with  in  read- 
ing their  newspaper,  or  heard  of  at  the  ministers' 
monthly  meeting.     They  dined  one  day  with  the  judge 


14  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

or  the  governor,  and  the  next  day  with  the  farmer  or 
mechanic,  and  thus  became  a  useful  medium  of  com- 
munication between  different  classes  of  society.  They 
were  the  natural  mediators  between  rich  and  educated, 
and  plain  people.  There  were  no  poor  and  no  ignorant 
people. 

During  the  summer  months  we  paid  and  receivec 
visits.  We  drove  over  in  the  old  family  carriage  to  see 
Dr.  Morse  or  Dr.  Spring  in  Watertown,  Governor  Gore 
and  Theodore  Lyman  in  Waltham,  Gorham  Parsons 
and  Mr.  Pomeroy  in  Brighton,  Mrs.  Swan  in  Dorches- 
ter, Jonathan  Eussell  and  Barney  Smith  in  Milton, 
Colonel  Perkins  and  the  Buckminsters  in  Brookline. 
These  little  trips  were  very  attractive  to  a  child.  Our 
own  home,  though  large  and  comfortable,  had  none  of 
the  elegance  which  some  of  these  old  mansions  dis- 
played. My  father's  house  was  also  in  Newton,  not 
far  off,  and  I  was  a  great  deal  there.  When  I  was  a 
small  child,  my  parents  lived  close  by,  in  my  aunt 
Sally  Curtis's  house ;  and  so  I  was  with  my  brothers 
and  sister  almost  as  much  as  if  we  had  been  in  the 
same  home.  My  grandmother  Freeman  was  always 
borrowing  the  children  of  her  friends.  They  loved  to 
come  to  Newton  to  gather  raspberries,  blackberries, 
and  cherries,  to  dig  in  the  garden,  fish  in  the  pond,  ride 
the  horses  with  or  without  a  saddle,  and  wander  into 
the  woods  when  the  chestnuts  and  hickory  nuts  began 
to  fall.  To  shoot  birds  was  not  allowed  on  our  place. 
There  was  no  gun  about  the  house ;  and  the  squirrels 
and  robins  had  their  way,  and  did  as  they  liked.  We 
had  so  many  cherry-trees  in  full  bearing  every  summei 
that  there  were  enough  for  the  birds  and  the  children 
too.  I  never  condescended  to  eat  cherries  which  had 
been  picked ;  but  when  I  wanted  them  I  climbed  to  the 
top  of  the  tree,  where  they  were  the  ripest  and  best, 
and  sat  eating,  with  the  robins  eating  around  me.  And 
in  those  days  the  peach-trees  bore  as  plentifully,  and 


NEWTON.  15 

the  peaches  strewed  the  ground  under  our  feet.  As 
for  the  blackberries,  there  was  a  great  heap  of  stones  in 
one  of  the  pastures,  which  had  accumulated  by  being 
carried  there  from  the  cultivated  fields,  and  this  stone- 
heap  was  overrun  with  the  best  blackberry  vines.  So 
that  we  children  could  say  with  Marvell,  — 

"  What  wondrous  life  is  this  I  lead ! 
Ripe  apples  drop  about  my  head  ; 
The  nectarine  and  curious  peach 
Into  my  hands  themselves  do  reach." 

An  old-fashioned  garden,  full  of  fruit,  berries,  and  nut- 
trees,  teaches  children  a  love  for  nature.  It  brings 
them  naturally  into  confidential  relations  with  the  vital 
forces  working  up  from  the  soil  and  down  from  the 
sky.  Nature,  a  tender  parent,  takes  the  little  ones  in 
her  arms,  as  Jesus  did,  and  introduces  them  into  her 
kingdom  of  heaven.  So  a  child  associates  what  he 
hears  of  God  with  what  he  sees  of  Him  in  sunshine 
and  cloud,  the  softly  approaching  dawn  and  the  gently 
departing  day.  One  of  the  hymns  which  I  heard  in 
early  childhood  had  these  lines  :  — 

' '  Wlio  spread  the  ocean  round 
About  the  solid  land, 
And  made  the  rising  ground 
Above  the  waters  stand." 

As  our  residence  was  so  high  that  we  could  see  the  dis- 
tant line  of  ocean  on  one  side,  and  the  pale  blue  horizon 
of  far-off  hills  on  the  other,  I  supposed,  in  my  sim- 
plicity, that  this  circle  of  blue  was  the  all-surrounding 
ocean,  and  that  all  the  solid  land  was  contained  in 
what  met  my  eyes.  When  quite  young,  Scott's  poem, 
"  The  Lady  of  the  Lake,"  was  read  aloud  in  my  hear= 
ing,  and  its  pictures  took  possession  of  my  imagination. 
One  day  the  family  coach  and  driver  came  to  the  door 
to  take  some  of  the  household  to  visit  their  cousins,  the 
Buckminsters  of  Framingham.  I  had  heard  of  a  lake 
in  Framingham,  and  asked  if  the  ''  Lady  of  the  Lake  " 


16  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

lived  there.  Some  one  laughingly  replied,  "  Certainly  ! 
Miss  Buckminster  is  the  '  Lady  of  the  Lake.' "  I 
therefore  expected  to  see  the  fair  Ellen  Douglas  in  l?er 
boat,  and  when  we  came  to  what  is  now  called  Cochitu- 
ate  Lake,  I  looked  through  the  carriage  window  with 
eager  expectation,  sure  that  the  little  skiff  would  ap- 
pear shooting  out  from  behind  a  headland.  Thus  a 
child  enriches  his  little  world  by  putting  into  it  all  lie 
hears  or  reads,  and  has  these  pictures  all  about  him. 

Until  I  was  ten  years  old,  I  received  most  of  my  tui- 
tion from  my  grandfather  Freeman.^  After  breakfast 
each  m.orning,  he  taught  my  elder  brother  and  sister 
and  me  Latin,  Greek,  and  mathematics.  I  did  not 
know  at  the  time  what  a  wonderful  teacher  he  was. 
He  anticipated,  sixty  years  ago,  the  best  methods  of 
modern  instruction.  In  the  first  place  he  made  our 
studies  interesting  to  us.  Next  he  removed  all  unneces- 
sary difficulties,  and  only  required  us  to  learn  what  was 
essential.  The  Latin  Grammar  which  we  studied  was 
only  twenty  or  thirty  pages  in  length.  It  was  called 
"  Latin  Accidence,"  and  contained  the  Parts  of  Speech, 
the  Declensions  and  Conjugations,  and  a  few  of  the 
principal  rules  of  Syntax.  The  larger  grammar  was 
not  to  be  committed  to  memory,  but  to  be  used  like  a 
dictionary,  for  consultation.    The  more  important  Latin 

^  Almost  my  first  recollection  as  a  chUd  is  of  one  wlio  seemed  to  me 
then  to  be  old,  who  was  the  friend  of  us  all.  In  the  morning  he 
worked  in  his  garden,  and  we  played  by  his  side  ;  in  the  forenoon, 
while  he  read  and  wrote,  we  children  studied  our  lessons  under  his 
guidance  ;  as  the  twilight  darkened,  he  gathered  us  around  him  to 
tell  during  successive  evenings  the  story  of  Ulysses,  of  Sir  Huon,  of 
Kehama  and  Thalaba.  As  we  grew  older,  we  learned  to  understand 
the  quality  of  his  benignity,  his  generosity,  his  manly  independence, 
his  sagacious  wisdom,  his  purity,  humility,  and  loyalty  to  all  truth 
and  right.  Surely  those  who  have  come  in  contact  with  such  an  influ- 
ence may  well  love  to  come  together,  and  for  an  hour  communicate 
to  each  other  what  they  remember  of  this  remarkable  life-  — J.  F.  C. 
at  Centennial  of  James  Freeman. 


NEWTON.  17 

words  we  learned  by  heart  from  a  "  Vocabulary,"  and 
the  more  important  Greek  words  from  a  small  book 
called  "  Greek  Primitives."  Thus  X)rovided,  we  imme- 
diately began  to  translate  some  interesting  story  in 
Nepos  or  Ovid.  He  kept  up  our  interest  by  talking  to 
us  about  it,  explaining  the  difficult  passages,  and  when 
it  was  in  verse  repeating  it  so  as  to  bring  out  the 
rhythm  and  melody.  When  we  came  to  a  word  we  did 
not  understand,  he  would  tell  us  the  meaning,  but  re- 
quired us  to  rej)eat  it  again  and  again  till  he  was  sure 
we  remembered  it.  To  those  who  thought  that  this 
method  made  study  too  easy,  and  that  it  did  not  dis- 
cipline the  mind,  he  answered,  "  The  study  of  a  for- 
eign language  can  never  be  made  too  easy.  There  are 
always  difficulties  enough  in  it.  But  what  mental  dis- 
cipline is  there  in  turning  over  the  pages  of  a  diction- 
ary ?  I  tell  these  children  the  meaning  of  the  word, 
just  as  the  dictionary  does ;  but  I  save  them  the  time 
lost  in  the  merely  manual  operation  of  turning  over  the 
leaves.  Eeal  discipline  comes  to  the  mind  when  it 
acts,  not  languidly,  but  with  its  full  energy,  and  it  acts 
with  energy  only  when  it  is  interested  in  what  it  does. 
Therefore,  as  soon  as  I  am  unable  to  keep  up  their 
interest  in  what  they  do,  I  turn  their  attention  to  some- 
thing else,  or  send  them  out  to  play."  The  excellence 
of  this  method  may  be  seen  in  the  fact  that  before  I 
was  ten  years  old  I  had  read  a  good  deal  of  Ovid,  some 
odes  of  Horace,  a  little  of  Virgil,  the  Gospel  of  Mat- 
thew in  Greek,  and  had  gone  as  far  as  Cubic  Equations 
in  algebra.  I  also  had  read  through  the  "  History  of 
the  United  States,"  Hume's  "England,"  Eobertson's 
"  Scotland,"  Ferguson's  and  Gibbon's  "  Kome."  I  can 
repeat  to-day,  after  sixty  years,  many  passages  of  Ovid 
and  at  least  three  odes  of  Horace,  which  I  committed 
to  memory  before  I  was  ten.  Nor  was  I  aware  that  I 
was  doing  a  great  deal,  for  the  study  was  made  almost 
as  entertaining  as  play.     Problems  in  arithmetic  and 


18  AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 

algebra  were  treated  as  a  kind  of  game.  I  once  met 
with  the  term  "  trigonometry,"  and  asked  my  grand- 
father the  meaning  of  the  word.  "  Trigonometry,"  said 
he,  "  is  a  wonderful  science.  It  is  all  about  trian- 
gles." "  What  is  a  triangle  ?  "  said  I.  "  I  will  show 
you,"  he  replied,  and  proceeded  to  draw  on  a  slate  a 
number  of  triangles,  showing  me  that  each  had  three 
sides  and  three  angles,  and  explaining  that  if  we  knew 
three  of  these  (one  being  a  side),  we  could  find  the 
other  three.  He  told  me  that  by  that  law  we  could 
tell  the  distances  of  the  planets  and  the  moon.  Then 
he  took  me  out  upon  the  lawn  and  showed  me  a  tall 
tree,  and  explained  how  by  trigonometry  I  could  tell 
the  height  of  the  tree.  Thereupon  I  made  myself  a 
little  quadrant  out  of  a  shingle,  and  proceeded  to  meas- 
ure the  height  of  the  trees  and  houses  around  me. 
Though  the  actual  results  were  probably  far  from  accu- 
rate, yet  by  this  little  experiment  I  obtained  a  very 
clear  notion  of  the  great  foundation  laws  of  mathemati- 
cal astronomy.  And  I  learned  this  in  play.  Such 
studies  left  plenty  of  time  for  outdoor  exercise.  With 
my  brothers  and  cousins  I  learned  to  ride  on  horseback 
with  and  without  a  saddle,  to  swim,  to  skate,  to  make 
bows  and  arrows  and  slings,  and  shoot  with  them,  and 
to  practice  all  the  other  athletic  sports  which  boys  love. 
We  went  to  find  distant  ponds  and  rivers  in  which 
to  catch  perch  and  pickerel,  and  we  even  rediscovered 
the  speckled  trout  in  some  brooks  whence  they  had 
been  thought  to  have  disappeared  long  before.  What 
happy  hours  we  passed  roaming  through  the  woods, 
clambering  over  ledges  of  gray  rock,  or  floating  in 
boats  on  the  omnipresent  Charles  River  which  nearly 
encircled  Newton !  Amid  these  studies  and  amuse- 
ments there  was  still  time  enough  for  reading.  First, 
when  young,  we  had  Miss  Edgeworth,  —  her  stories  not 
being  bound  together  under  the  forbidding  title  of 
"  Parents'  Assistant,"  but  in  separate  tales,  each  to  be 


NEWTON.  19 

read  by  itself  and  read  again,  —  "  Simple  Susan/' 
"  The  Little  "Merchants,"  "  Old  Poz/'  "  Eton  Montem," 
etc.  Then,  too,  Walter  Scott  was  writing  his  novels, 
and  whenever  a  new  one  appeared,  it  was  brought  from 
Boston,  and  read  aloud  in  the  family  circle.  I  recollect 
that  when  "  Ivanhoe  "  came,  I  eagerly  seized  it,  and 
became  so  absorbed  in  the  story  of  the  tournament  that 
I  hid  under  a  bed,  and  refused  to  hear  the  call  to  study 
till  I  had  seen  the  Black  Knight  and  Ivanhoe  trium- 
phant in  the  lists  of  Ashby-de-la-Zouche.  I  still  think 
that  there  are  no  novels  like  those,  —  so  full  of  charac- 
ter, adventure,  picturesque  incident,  and  with  such  an 
atmosphere  of  sunshine  and  good  health  throughout. 
Under  that  magic  pen  history  became  living,  and  the 
past  was  present.  We  were  the  crusaders,  2/;e  the  out- 
laws, tve  the  hesitating  heroes  of  the  Waverley  novels, 
who  always  seemed  in  an  interesting  dilemma,  not  quite 
able  to  decide  between  the  two  ways.  Each  Waverley 
novel  was  a  new  joy.  And  so  Scott's  poems  were  full 
of  delight  and  cheer.  Their  lyric  flow,  their  manly 
tone,  their  generous  sentiment  lifted  us  into  a  blessed 
region  of  ideal  beauty.  I  remember  when  I  was  at  the 
Latin  School,  I  spent  my  half-holiday  one  Saturday 
reading  "  Marmion,"  for  the  first  time.  As  the  sun  was 
setting  I  reached  the  end  of  the  poem,  and  in  the  fare- 
well verses  read  with  astonishment  these  lines  :  — 

"  To  thee,  dear  schoolboy,  whom  my  lay 
Has  cheated  of  thy  hour  of  play, 
Light  task  and  merry  holiday  !  " 

and  it  seemed  as  if  Scott  were  close  beside  me,  talking 
GO  me  in  person. 

There  was  an  old  chestnut-tree  in  the  pasture,  in 
which  I  had  arranged  a  seat,  and  there  I  often  sat,  sur- 
rounded by  the  thick  shady  branches,  and  read  the 
most  interesting  books  I  could  discover  in  my  grand- 
father's library.     As  this  consisted  largely  of  books  of 


20  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

theology,  Latin  and  Greek  classics,  or  learned  works  in 
Spanish,  Italian,  and  Portuguese,  I  found  it  difficult  to 
suit  myself.  There  was  "  Kasselas,"  which  pretended 
to  be  a  story,  but  was  only  a  long  string  of  moralizing. 
But  among  some  numbers  of  "  The  Monthly  Antho- 
logy "  I  found  the  translation,  by  Sir  William  Jones,  of 
the  Hindoo  play  "  Sakoontala,"  and  there  was  an  old  edi 
tion  of  Shakespeare  in  a  number  of  duodecimo  volumes. 
The  tradition  in  the  family  was,  that  these  volumes 
came  ashore  when  the  English  man-of-war  Somerset 
was  wrecked  on  Cape  Cod.  Some  of  the  volumes  were 
missing,  but  this  on  the  whole  was  an  advantage,  for 
it  gave  a  certain  aspect  of  infinity  to  the  author.  For 
aught  I  knew  there  might  be  a  hundred  more  plays  of 
Shakespeare.  And  as  we  think  more  of  the  lost  books 
of  Tacitus  than  of  those  we  possess,  because  the  con- 
tents of  these  unread  pages  fill  the  imagination  with 
conjectures,  so  the  plays  of  Shakespeare  which  I  did 
not  have  made  an  ideal  penumbra  of  beauty  round 
those  I  was  reading.  There  was  also  a  volume  of  "  Ele- 
gant Extracts  "  in  verse,  by  Vicesimus  Knox,  which 
contained  very  good  reading.  From  that  volume  I 
learned  something  of  Spenser  and  Dryden,  Swift  and 
Pope.  I  even  found  some  amusement  in  '^  Bailey's 
English  Dictionary,"  which  often  gave  little  historic 
and  biographic  anecdotes  about  the  words,  expatiating 
in  a  delightful  way  while  illustrating  their  meaning.  I 
learned  from  it  a  little  of  everything,  and  can  still  re- 
peat the  names  and  descriptions  of  the  "  Ten  honorable 
Ordinaries  "  in  Heraldry  as  I  there  learned  them  for 
my  amusement.  It  also  contained  tables  for  making 
Latin  hexameters  by  a  mechanical  process ;  and  other 
like  matters,  which  are  far  below  the  dignity  of  a  mod- 
ern dictionary. 

I  confess  to  a  weakness  for  such  old-fashioned  text- 
books, which  condescend  a  little  to  the  infirmities  of 
beginners.     Schoolbooks  now  are  composed  by  scholars 


NEWTON.  21 

who  wish  to  show  off  their  learning  to  other  scholars, 
and  who  scorn  what  is  elementary.  A  school  treatise 
on  algebra  is  composed  as  if  intended  for  profound 
mathematicians.  A  Latin  grammar  prepared  for  boys 
ten  years  old  goes  into  the  mysteries  of  philology.  A 
new  edition  of  Virgil  shows  that  the  editor  has  ran- 
sacked all  the  studies  on  etymology  and  syntax  in  order 
to  make  a  show  of  recondite  learning  in  his  foot-notes. 
How  much  better  for  boys  the  old  Delphin  editions  of 
the  classics,  which,  fortunately  for  me,  were  still  in 
use  in  my  days  !*  There  the  words  were  arranged  in  the 
margin  in  the  order  of  construction,  and  the  foot-notes 
gave  us  explanations  which  made  the  matter  clear. 
And  at  the  end  what  a  copious  index,  which  gave  us 
words  and  phrases!  Besides  this  we  had  other  helps, 
such  as  the  "  Gradus  ad  Parnassum,"  and  for  some 
books  an  interlined  translation.  Instead  of  the  modern 
astronomies  which  bristle  with  mathematical  formulas, 
we  had  "  The  Young  Gentleman's  Astronomy,"  in  which 
the  author  announces  that  it  is  written,  "  not  to  advance 
learning,  but  to  assist  learners,"  and  boldly  declares  his 
intention  to  begin  at  the  beginning. 

The  English  classics  in  Dr.  Freeman's  library  were 
of  the  Queen  Anne  era.  Thus  I  became  quite  familiar 
with  the  "  Spectator  "  and  "  Guardian,"  and  writers  of 
that  period.  If  we  had  not  many  books  to  read,  we 
possessed  some  of  the  best.  It  did  us  no  harm  to  read 
over  again  and  again  "  Paradise  Lost,"  Pope's  "  Essay  on 
Man,"  "  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield,"  "  Eobinson  Crusoe," 
and  "  Gulliver's  Travels."  The  poems  of  Prior,  Gay, 
and  Peter  Pindar  were  also  in  the  Freeman  library,  in 
old  editions.  In  my  good  aunt  Sally  Curtis's  rooms  I 
found  some  of  the  novels  popular  in  her  time  :  "  Ce- 
cilia "  and  "  Evelina,"  by  Miss  Burney  ;  "  The  Scottish 
Chiefs  ;  "  "  Thaddeus  of  Warsaw  ;  "  with  Thomson's 
''  Seasons  ;  "  Falconer's  "  Shipwreck ;  "  and  Shenstone's 
poems. 


22  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

I  am  glad  that  I  early  came  to  know  and  love  Pope. 
I  obtained  his  complete  works  as  a  prize  when  at  the 
Latin  School,  and  in  the  same  way  came  into  possession 
of  Johnson's  "  Lives  of  the  Poets,"  and  the  poems  of 
Scott,  Burns,  and  Cowper.  I  am  indebted  to  my  aunt 
Swan  for  one  source  of  pleasure  and  culture.  When  I 
was  a  child,  recovering  from  a  long  illness,  she  brought 
to  the  house  for  my  amusement  the  large  engravings 
from  Hogarth,  and  a  folio  volume  of  engravings  from 
the  Orleans  Gallery. 

It  is  an  advantage  to  a  child  to  gYO\f  up  among  hills, 
for  then  Nature  makes  a  perpetual  framework  around 
him  for  his  thoughts.  The  scenery  blends  with  all  he 
does,  and  its  calm  beauty  gives  dignity  and  serenity 
to  every  emotion.  The  landscape  holds  him  in  its  arms 
like  a  mother,  and  caresses  him  with  its  tender  charm 
at  every  hour.  Our  thoughts  are  at  last  so  associated 
with  hills  and  the  wide  horizon  that  when  we  go  to 
live  on  a  level  plain,  or  amid  the  streets  of  a  city,  we 
suffer  from  nostalgia.  We  miss  the  sweeping  outlines 
of  nature,  the  rolling  uplands,  the  deep  silent  woods, 
the  far  resounding  sea.  Mr.  Emerson,  in  his  "  Nature," 
well  describes  how  the  orator  bred  in  the  fields  and 
among  hills  draws  inspiration  long  after  from  the 
memories  of  his  childhood,  and  how  the  sights  and 
sounds  of  Nature  pass  into  his  speech. 

My  grandfather  Freeman's  house,  where  I  lived,  was 
on  high  land,  with  a  horizon  line  of  ocean  in  the  dis- 
tance to  the  northeast,  and  the  blue  hills  of  Weston  at 
the  northwest.  My  grandfather  Hull's  home,  a  mile  or 
two  away,  stood  above  a  valley,  through  which  ran  a 
strong  cold  stream  of  water,  tumbling  in  a  little  cascade 
out  of  a  deep  pond.  His  was  a  farm  containing  some 
three  hundred  acres,  much  of  it  being  a  wild  wood, 
and  a  part  low  meadow  land,  with  stately  elm-trees 
here  and  there.  The  house  was  a  sort  of  Liberty 
Hall,  where  people   came  and  went  at  their  will  and 


NEWTON.  23 

did  as  they  liked.  Both  my  grandfather  and  grand- 
mother Hull  were  in  their  dispositions  largely  hospita- 
ble, and  this  habit  of  hospitality  had  been  increased  by 
their  having  lived  so  many  years  at  Detroit,  on  the 
frontier,  where,  as  in  all  new  countries,  it  is  the  custom 
to  keep  an  open  house  and  to  receive  all  comers.  The 
poverty  and  prudence  of  New  England  people  prevented 
such  a  custom  from  prevailing  among  them,  and  my 
grandfather  Hull's  house  was  the  only  one  I  remember, 
as  a  boy,  where  the  doors  seemed  always  to  stand  oper, 
literally  and  figuratively.  As  my  grandfather  had  lived 
somewhat  abroad,  and  had  been  connected  with  various 
families  through  the  Union,  strangers  would  often  ar- 
rive, bringing  letters  of  introduction  from  remote  re- 
gions. Among  these,  I  remember  foreigners  with  hard 
names,  Italian  and  French  gentlemen,  who  w^ould  be- 
come members  of  the  family  for  many  days  or  weeks, 
and  then  depart,  and  be  heard  of  no  more.  Meantime, 
while  these  visitors  occupied  the  rooms  above,  the 
great  kitchen  below  was  commonly  full  of  another  class, 
who  made  themselves  equally  at  home.  A  sort  of  peo- 
ple who  would  now  be  called  tramps  were  generally 
there,  ready  to  eat  their  dinner,  and  when  night  came 
find  some  place  to  sleep  in  Judge  Fuller's  old  malt- 
house.  Also  the  Sam  Lawsons  of  the  region  would 
often  be  found  sitting  in  General  Hull's  kitchen,  giv- 
ing out  the  village  gossip,  and  relating  the  news  of  the 
neighborhood. 

When  I  read  "  Oldtown  Folks,"  I  was  satisfied  that 
Old  town  meant  New  town,  and  that  the  scene  was  laid 
in  Newton,  at  my  grandfather  Hull's  place.  The 
author,  in  describing  the  good  grandmother's  kitchen, 
was  evidently  giving  an  account  of  my  grandmother 
Hull's  kitchen.  I  once  met  Mrs.  Stowe  at  Governor 
Claflin's,  whose  residence  stands  exactly  where  General 
Hull's  house  stood,  and  I  asked  her  to  say  frankly  if 
that  very  spot  were  not  the  scene  of  "  Oldtown  Folks." 


24  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

She  made  no  satisfactory  reply  to  this  questioiij  and  no- 
thing will  convince  me  that  some  traditions  of  the  old 
Hull  place  did  not  reach  her.  It  is  too  exact  an  account 
to  be  a  mere  coincidence. 

How  all  the  visitors,  retainers,  and  hangers-on  were 
supported  is  a  question  difficult  to  answer.  My  grand- 
father's means  were  very  modest.  He  had  only  a  small 
income  beside  the  produce  of  his  farm.  But  most  of 
what  was  eaten  in  parlor  and  kitchen  came  from  his 
garden  and  fields. 

My  uncle  Abraham,  General  Hull's  only  son,  was 
killed  at  the  battle  of  Lundy's  Lane,  one  of  the  sharp- 
est conflicts  of  the  war  of  1812.  He  was  captain  in  the 
United  States  Fourth,  a  famous  regiment,  was  bayonet- 
ed in  advance  of  the  line,  while  leading  a  charge,  and 
was  buried  where  he  fell,  as  a  mark  of  distinction  for 
his  signal  gallantry.  Years  after,  in  visiting  the  place, 
I  was  shown  the  spot  by  an  old  soldier  who  had  been  in 
the  battle,  and  who  spoke  warmly  of  the  courage  of 
Captain  Hull.  I  recalled  the  lines  of  Bryant,  which 
may  have  been  written  on  the  very  spot,  beginning,  — 

"  Once  this  soft  turf,  these  quiet  sands, 
Were  trampled  by  a  hurrying  crowd, 
And  fiery  hearts  and  armed  hands 
Encountered  in  the  battle-cloud." 

In  my  opinion,  it  is  a  disadvantage  for  children 
to  have  much  money,  and  also  a  disadvantage  to  be 
without  any.  The  prayer  of  Agur,  "  Give  me  neither 
poverty  nor  riches,"  applies  as  well  to  children  as  to 
adults.  My  brothers  and  I  made  our  own  playthings, 
our  bats  and  balls,  our  bows  and  arrows.  We  had  a 
museum  to  which  drifted  the  curiosities  of  the  famil}', 
—  Indian  war  clubs,  moccasins,  and  finery  ;  the  mouths 
of  sharks  rimmed  with  rows  of  terrific  teeth ;  the  rat- 
tles of  the  rattlesnake,  the  tusks  of  the  rhinoceros,  — 
evidences  of  the  past  connection  of  some  of  the  house- 
hold with  the  wilderness,  and  of  others  with  the  sea. 


NEWTON.  25 

But  some  things,  like  sleds  and  skates,  must  be  bought ; 
and  for  such  purposes  we  laid  away  our  small  incomes. 
It  was  one  of  my  grandfather's  principles  that  every 
person  should  have  some  regular  allowance,  be  it  ever 
so  little.  He  believed  that  a  husband  should  make  a 
regular  allowance  to  his  wife,  and  parents  to  their  chil- 
dren. When  I  was  a  very  little  boy  I  had  three  cents 
a  week,  then  six,  then  ten,  at  last  twenty-five  cents. 
But  I  was  required  to  keep  an  account  book,  and  put 
down  all  I  received  and  spent.  I  even  learned  to  keep 
my  books  by  double  entry,  which  also  was  made  an  en- 
tertaining exercise.  I  cannot  but  think  that  this  was  a 
very  good  thing  for  us.  We  were  taught  the  value  of 
money,  taught  to  economize  it,  so  as  to  use  it  for  an 
extraordinary  occasion. 

Thus,  after  hearing  a  course  of  chemical  lectures,  I 
had  my  little  laboratory.  After  a  lecture  on  electricity, 
I  set  myself  to  making  a  machine  ;  for  a  cylinder  I 
bought  a  large  bottle  of  smooth  white  glass ;  my  non- 
conducting pillars  to  support  it,  and  to  support  the  con- 
ductor, were  cologne  bottles ;  the  conductor  itself  I 
made  of  a  block  of  wood  on  which  was  pasted ,  tinfoil. 
My  Ley  den  jars  I  manufactured  in  the  same  way,  and 
I  could  get  a  very  respectable  spark  from  this  simple 
apparatus. 

It  was  the  custom  on  summer  afternoons  for  many  of 
my  grandfather  Freeman's  friends  to  drive  from  Boston, 
to  visit  him  at  his  country  residence.  The  reception 
room  was  a  large  parlor  on  the  east,  from  which  there 
was  a  beautiful  view  of  the  valley  below,  ISTonantum  ^ 
on  the  left,  the  spire  of  Brighton  church  beyond,  and 
farther  away,  Charlestown,  Boston,  and  the  ocean. 

1  Nonantum  is  the  hill  where  the  apostle  Eliot  first  preached  to  the 
Indians. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE    LATIN    SCHOOL. 

The  Boston  Latin  School  was  the  first  and  only 
school  I  ever  attended.  All  my  early  teaching,  as  I  have 
said,  I  received  at  home ;  and  when  I  entered  the  Latin 
School,  at  the  age  of  ten,  I  had  already  acquired  a  con- 
siderable amount  of  knowledge  under  that  genial  home 
instruction.  Every  difficult  ste23  had  been  made  so  easy 
for  me  that  I  enjoyed  reading  the  pleasant  stories  of 
Ovid,  and  even  the  melodies  of  Horace;  and  algebra 
had  been  a  game  full  of  interesting  problems,  the  solu- 
tion of  which  gave  a  thrill  of  satisfaction.  So  that  I 
might  seem  to  be  thoroughly  prepared  for  the  studies  of 
the  Latin  School.  But  one  thing  I  had  not  learned  to 
do.  I  had  not  been  taught  to  commit  to  memory  the 
uninteresting  and  unintelligible  rules,  exceptions,  notes, 
and  remarks,  of  which  the  school  grammar  was  full. 
It  was  the  Latin  School  system,  in  those  days,  to  have 
the  first  year  wholly  occupied  in  committing  to  memory 
the  most  abstract  formulas  of  Adams'  Latin  Grammar. 
There  might  be  a  dull  kind  of  discipline  in  this ;  but,  as 
I  think,  an  injurious  one.  It  was  a  discipline  of  the 
power  of  cramming  the  memory  with  indigestible  facts 
and  sounds.  It  taught  us  to  make  a  strenuous  effort 
to  accomplish  a  disagreeable  task.  But  is  not  life  full 
enough  of  such  tasks  ?  Is  there  ever  a  day  in  which 
we  do  not  have  to  do  them  ?  Why,  then,  take  the  time 
which  might  be  occupied  in  learning  something  inter- 
esting and  useful,  in  learning  as  a  mere  tour  de  force 
that  which  we  should  never  use  ?     It  had  a  benumbing 


LATIN  SCHOOL.  27 

effect  on  the  mind.  It  stupefied  our  faculties.  It  gave 
a  distaste  for  study.  Latin,  Greek,  and  mathematics, 
taught  in  this  way,  inspired  only  dislike. 

What  is  mental  discipline  ?  Every  faculty  of  body 
and  mind  is  best  disciplined  by  exercise.  Now  only 
that  which  we  enjoy  doing  fully  exercises  our  powers. 
We  do  disagreeable  tasks  by  a  strenuous  effort,  feebly ; 
we  do  agreeable  ones  without  an  effort,  with  energy. 
What  greater  exercise  than  playing  chess  ?  This  tasks 
observation,  memory,  foresight,  the  power  of  combining 
means  to  an  end,  patient  continued  effort.  If  chess 
were  drudgery,  no  one  could  ever  do  all  this.  But  the 
pleasure  which  attends  it  tides  us  over  all  these  diffi- 
cult mental  operations. 

The  joy  which  children  take  in  play  is  an  ingenious 
device  by  which  Mother  Nature  communicates  to  them 
the  first  and  most  indispensable  knowledge.  The  play- 
room and  playground  are  her  primary  school.  There, 
children  intent  on  ball,  top,  kite,  games  of  tag,  puss  in 
the  corner,  and  so  on,  are  really  learning  how  to  exer- 
cise their  limbs,  balance  their  bodies,  quicken  their  per- 
ceptive organs,  and  learn  obedience  to  the  immutable 
laws  of  the  physical  world.  While  playing,  they  be- 
come acquainted  with  the  nature  of  things,  gravitation, 
motion  in  direct  lines  and  curves,  the  laws  of  elasticity, 
action  and  reaction,  equilibrium,  friction,  and  the  like. 
They  also  learn,  by  plajdng  in  company,  how  to  com- 
mand and  obey,  to  give  up  their  own  wishes  for  the 
common  good,  and  to  unite  with  others  for  a  common 
end.  From  this  varied,  delightful,  and  thorough  sys- 
tem of  education,  we  take  them  to  a  school,  and  teach 
them  —  what  ?  the  dull  process  of  committing  words  to 
memory  !     And  we  think  this  is  education  ! 

Of  course  I  do  not  mean  that  children  should  spend 
all  their  time  in  play,  but  I  mean  that  we  should  study 
the  method  of  nature,  and  make  what  we  call  work  as 
interesting  as  play.  It  can  be  made  even  more  inter- 
esting. 


28  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

It  was  a  well  established  tradition  in  our  family  that 
the  boys  should  all  go  to  the  Boston  Latin  School.  My 
father  went  to  it.  My  grandfather  Clarke  went  to  it. 
My  grandfather  Freeman  went  to  it.  And  all  my 
brothers,  as  well  as  myself,  went  to  it.  And  no  doubt, 
notwithstanding  its  grievous  defects  in  methods,  it  did 
us  all  great  good  to  go  there. 

First,  it  taught  social  equality.  There  is  no  aris- 
tocracy in  a  public  school  but  the  natural  leadership  of 
superior  ability.  The  public  schools  of  England  have 
saved  the  nation  from  that  separation  of  class  from 
class  which  has  brought  revolution  to  the  kingdoms  of 
the  Continent.  Public  schools  teach  boys  the  true 
equality  of  human  beings,  not  an  equality  of  powers,  of 
function,  of  position,  of  possession,  but  of  human  and 
social  rights.  The  young  son  of  an  English  nobleman 
finds  he  must  get  the  son  of  a  farmer  to  help  him 
in  his  studies,  finds  himself  surpassed  in  his  classes  by 
the  son  of  a  poor  widow,  finds  himself  on  the  plaj^- 
ground  obeying,  as  his  chief,  the  bright-eyed,  quick- 
footed  plebeian,  who  is  the  natural  captain  of  the  little 
regiment.  Thus  he  learns  to  subordinate  position  to 
faculty,  outward  rank  to  native  power. 

In  my  division  in  the  Latin  School  there  were  sons 
of  the  wealthiest,  and  sons  of  the  least  wealthy  citizens. 
They  studied,  recited,  played  together,  and  were  thus 
educated  to  a  true  democracy.  One  of  these  boys, 
whose  father  was  a  man  of  limited  means,  became  after- 
ward an  eminent  engineer.  Some  forty  years  after  we 
left  the  Latin  School,  I  happened  to  meet  a  relative  of 
his,  and  asked  after  my  old  classmate.  ''  He  is  chief 
engineer,"  she  answered,  "to  the  Emperor  of  Brazil. 
In  his  last  letter  he  described  a  reception  he  had  given 
at  his  villa  to  the  Emperor  and  his  court." 

On  entering  the  Latin  School  I  was  put  into  a  divi- 
sion of  ten  or  twelve  boys  in  the  lowest,  or  fifth  class, 
and  began  to  commit  to  memory  the  first  pages  of  the 


LATIN  SCHOOL.  29 

Latin  Grammar.  How  well  I  remember  the  first  sen- 
tence :  "  Grammar  is  the  art  of  speaking  and  writing 
correctly."  Having  thus  defined  it  as  an  art,  the  book 
went  on  to  teach  it  as  though  it  were  a  science.  In- 
stead of  practical  rules  and  examples  of  correct  and 
incorrect  speech,  it  gave  a  minute  philological  analysis 
of  the  linguistic  forms.  How  do  children  learn  to 
speak  their  own  language  ?  By  being  taught  the  dif- 
ference between  a  noun  and  pronoun,  an  adverb  and 
conjunction  ?  By  analyzing  language  into  moods  and 
tenses,  number  and  person  ?  Not  at  all.  They  learn 
by  imitation  and  repetition.  They  learn  thus  the  use 
of  the  most  essential  words  and  forms,  and  only  come 
gradually  to  the  less  essential.  That  is,  they  learn  by 
practice  and  observation.  They  first  acquire  the  phrases 
which  are  most  necessary  for  common  use,  and  these 
they  retain  because  they  have  to  use  them  so  often. 
Their  vocabulary  extends  itself  gradually  to  an  outer 
circle  of  less  used  terms ;  and  so,  by  gradual  expansion, 
they  become  familiar  with  all  that  they  need  to  know. 

If  grammar  is  the  art  of  speaking,  writing,  and  read- 
ing a  language  correctly,  it  should  follow  this  method 
of  nature  instead  of  that  of  the  schools.  Fortunately, 
the  superstition  of  grammar  is  rapidly  disappearing. 
Another  superstition  remains,  however,  —  that  of  the 
dictionary.  Sensible  and  practical  teachers  are  now 
generally  aware  that,  in  learning  a  language,  all  the 
knowledge  of  grammar  needed  at  first  is  that  of  the 
declensions  and  conjugations  and  a  few  rules  of  syntax. 
Having  acquired  these,  the  pupil  is  to  keep  his  gram- 
mar by  his  side  as  a  book  of  reference,  turning  to  it 
when  a  difficulty  appears  which  he  is  unable  otherwise 
to  remove.  He  learns  his  grammar  by  practical  appli- 
cation, and  thus  will  remember  it  better.  But  how 
about  the  dictionary  ? 

Great  objection  is  made  by  teachers  to  the  use  of 
translations.     But  what  mental  discipline  comes  from 


30  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

turning  over  the  pages  of  a  dictionary  ?  Does  know- 
ledge enter  our  minds  through  the  ends  of  our  fingers  ? 
Does  the  mere  bodily  exercise  of  thumbing  the  leaves 
tend  to  fix  the  word  in  the  memory  ?  The  dictionary 
tells  the  boy  the  meaning  of  the  term.  The  translation 
does  exactly  the  same  thing,  only  saving  the  time  lost 
in  searching  for  it.  A  tutor,  sitting  by  his  side,  if  wise, 
would  do  the  same.  The  point  in  each  case  is  to  have 
him  remember  the  meaning  after  he  has  been  told  it. 
That  could  be  accomplished  by  his  going  over  his  exer- 
cise repeatedly,  until  he  remembers  it  without  refer- 
ring to  dictionary,  translation,  or  tutor. 

When  I  entered  the  Latin  School  I  was  put  into  a 
small  class  who  were  set  to  committing  to  memory 
Adams'  Latin  Grammar.  In  this  exercise  I  was  very 
imperfect,  and  I  immediately  went  to  the  foot  of  the 
class,  and  there  remained.  For  it  was  the  custom,  and 
I  think  it  a  very  good  one,  to  excite  the  emulation  of 
the  boys  by  having  each  boy  who  made  a  mistake 
change  places  in  the  seat  with  any  boy  who  was  below 
him  and  could  correct  him.  Thus  it  happened  that  the 
position  and  rank  of  the  pupil  might  change  several 
times  during  a  single  recitation.  At  the  beginning  of 
each  recitation  the  boys  occupied  the  places  they  held 
at  the  close  of  the  previous  one.  jSTo  record  was  kept 
of  this  rank,  and  no  reward  or  honor  was  obtained  by 
it.  Thus  there  was  no  undue  stimulus  exercised,  and 
yet  enough  to  arouse  the  ambition  of  the  scholars.  The 
excitement  subsided  at  the  end  of  each  recitation. 

From  this  experimental  class  the  pupils  were  trans- 
ferred, according  to  their  apparent  merits,  into  different 
divisions  of  the  fourth  and  fifth  classes.  Finally  there 
remained  only  one  boy  beside  myself  who  had  not  been 
thus  transferred.  He  was  John  Osborne  Sargent,  who 
has  since  then  become  a  distinguished  man.  He  had  been 
always  at  the  head  of  the  class,  and  I  at  the  foot.  To 
my  intense  surprise  he  and  I  were  both  transplanted  to 


LATIN  SCHOOL.  31 

a  higher  position  than  any  of  the  rest,  namely,  into 
the  second  division  of  the  fourth  class.  That  ISargent 
should  thus  be  promoted  seemed  only  just;  but  on 
what  ground  was  I  sent  up  with  him  ?  It  seemed  like 
pure  favoritism.  Or  did  Mr.  Gould  have  prescience  by 
which  to  discern  the  result  ?  For  no  sooner  was  I  thus 
promoted,  and,  instead  of  committing  the  grammar  to 
memory,  set  to  translating  Cornelius  ISTepos,  than  I  be-= 
came  one  of  the  best  two  scholars  in  the  class,  my  com- 
panion Sargent  being  the  other.  My  previous  instruc- 
tion at  home  began  to  tell.  It  had  taught  me  to  use  my 
faculties  freely ;  it  caused  me  to  take  pleasure  in  my 
studies.  I  took  great  pleasure  in  the  music  of  Ovid, 
which  followed  Nepos  ;  and  when  we  came  to  Virgil, 
the  lovely  pastoral  pictures  in  the  Eclogues  had  a  charm 
which  still  remains.  The  ^neid  I  never  liked  so  well. 
It  was  very  easy  reading,  but  seemed  less  original  and 
more  superficial.  The  "  pious  ^neas  "  I  thought  a  cold- 
blooded humbug,  and  I  think  so  still.  Virgil's  heroes 
seem  hardly  more  than  lay  figures,  or  shells  of  men, 
with  no  substantial  humanity  within.  What  a  poor 
creature  is  ^neas  compared  with  the  high-spirited,  gen- 
erous Hector  !  The  episode  of  ^neas  and  Dido  is  far 
inferior  to  that  of  Ulysses  and  Calypso,  from  which 
it  was  copied,  and  even  to  the  subsequent  replica  of 
Einaldo  and  Armida  in  Tasso. 

There  was  one  book  used  in  the  Latin  School  when  1 
was  there  in  which  the  true  method  of  instruction  was 
fully  realized.  This  was  Warren  Colburn's  "First  Les- 
sons in  Arithmetic."  It  exercised  the  mind,  not  the 
memory ;  it  began  with  what  was  easy,  and  went  on  to 
what  was  difficult ;  it  interested  us  by  perpetual  prob- 
lems, which  tasked  but  did  not  tax  the  mind.  We  had 
not  to  commit  to  memory  unintelligible  rules,  but  made 
rules  for  ourselves  as  we  went  on.  We  boys  never 
])layed  a  game  with  more  pleasure  or  more  excitement 
than  we  had  in  seeing  which  would  be  the  first  to  get 


32  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

the  answer  to  a  proposed  question.  But  of  course  this 
admirable  book  was  soon  banished  from  the  schools  by 
the  pedants,  who  thought  that  whatever  was  interest- 
ing must  be  bad.  It  combined  the  best  training  with 
the  best  instruction,  enabling  a  boy  or  a  girl  to  solve 
any  mathematical  question  likely  to  arise  in  the  busi= 
ness  of  life.  But  though  it  thus  fully  attained  the  end 
of  arithmetic,  it  did  not  teach  the  students  to  call  the 
processes  by  the  old  names,  and  so  it  was  first  muti- 
lated, and  then  very  generally  discarded. 

But  I  recollect  this  incident,  which  illustrates  its 
value.  One  of  the  best  teachers  I  ever  knew,  Francis 
E.  Goddard,  of  Louisville,  Ky.,  had  a  little  boy  com- 
mitted to  his  care  by  his  father,  Mr.  Garnet  Duncan,  of 
that  city.  The  boy,  who  has  since  become  somewhat 
famous  as  a  politician,  was  w^alking  with  his  teacher 
through  the  main  street  of  Louisville,  when  they  came 
to  a  store,  in  front  of  which  two  or  three  of  the  princi- 
pal merchants  of  the  city  were  engaged  in  animated 
discussion.  "  Here  comes  Mr.  Goddard,"  said  one  of 
them ;  "  let  us  ask  him.  We  have  a  mathematical 
question  which  has  arisen  in  the  course  of  our  business 
which  we  cannot  answer."  So  he  stated  the  difficulty, 
and  asked  Mr.  Goddard  to  write  down  the  problem, 
take  it  home,  and  when  he  had  leisure  see  if  he  could 
solve  it.     Goddard  turned  to  the  little  boy  by  his  side 

and  said,  "  Here, ,  do  it  in  your  head."     And  the 

boy  gave  the  right  answer  on  the  spot.  He  had  been 
thoroughly  trained  in  Colburn's  "  First  Lessons."  ^ 

One  of  the  most  curious  literary  deceptions  occurred 
when  I  was  at  the  Latin  School.  One  of  my  class^ 
whose  father  was  a  highly  respectable  citizen,  but  not 
very   wealthy,   suddenly   appeared   to   have   plenty  of 

^  We  leave  this  incident  as  recorded  by  Dr.  Clarke  because  the 
facts  were  as  stated ;  but  the  explanation  proves  to  lie  in  the  excep- 
tional endowment  of  the  boy,  who  has  retained  through  life  the  same 
power  of  immediate  solution  of  intricate  mathematical  problems.    Ed. 


LATIN  SCHOOL.  o3 

money.  He  would  hire  horses  and  take  us  to  drive, 
and  indulge  in  other  expenditures.  Years  after  he  gave 
me  the  explanation.  John  Pierpont  had  just  prepared 
his  Keader  for  schools,  called  "  The  American  First 
Class  Book."  It  was  published  by  William  B.  Fowle, 
and  had  a  great  success.  It  was  far  superior  in  its  se- 
lections to  those  of  any  other  reading-book  then  extant. 
The  author  and  publisher  had  found  it  very  profitable. 
The  boy  to  whom  I  refer  wrote  Mr.  Fowle,  in  the  charac- 
ter of  a  retired  literary  gentleman  who  did  not  wish  his 
name  to  transpire,  offering  to  prepare  a  companion  vol- 
ume to  that  of  Mr.  Pierpont,  containing  extracts  suit- 
able for  declamation.  Mr.  Fowle  answered  the  letter, 
saying  he  would  like  a  specimen  of  the  work,  suffi- 
ciently  copious  to  enable  him  to  judge  of  its  value. 
Thereupon  my  young  friend  associated  a  companion 
with  himself,  and  together  they  wrote  out  extracts  from 
speeches,  plays,  and  poems,  suitable  for  elocutionary 
purposes,  and  sufficient  in  quantity  to  make  the  first 
quarter  of  the  volume.  Mr.  Fowle  accepted  it,  and 
sent  his  check  for,  I  think,  at  l^ast  a  hundred  dollars. 
They  prepared  and  sent  another  quarter,  and  received 
another  hundred  dollars.  By  this  time  they  grew  a 
little  careless,  and  the  third  quarter  was  so  inferior 
that  Mr.  Fowle  refused  to  pay  for  more,  and  finished 
the  book  himself.  But  the  boys  received  between  them 
two  or  three  hundred  dollars ;  and  I  presume  that  Mr. 
Fowle  never  knew  who  were  the  compilers  of  the  vol- 
ume. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

CAMBRIDGE. 

I  ENTERED  Harvard  College  in  1825,  being  fifteen 
years  old,  which  was  the  age  of  the  large  majority  of 
the  class.  We  graduated  in  1829,  at  the  age  of  nine- 
teen. Instead  of  the  two  hundred  who  now  enter,  we 
were  only  about  sixty ;  but  this  enabled  every  one  to 
know  all  his  classmates.  The  class  became  a  famous 
one  afterward,  having  produced  eminent  men  in  law, 
science,  mercantile  pursuits,  and  literature ;  but  it  did 
not  promise  much  in  college.  The  curious  fact  was, 
that  few  of  the  class  took  any  genuine  interest  in  the 
college  studies.  Benjamin  Peirce,  who  was  born  with 
the  genius  for  mathematics  which  made  him  afterward 
so  distinguished  a  mathematician,  went  far  beyond  the 
college  course  in  that  direction.  Each  class  had  one 
day  a  week  in  which  to  take  books  from  the  college 
library ;  and  I  recollect  that  Peirce,  instead  of  select- 
ing novels,  poetry,  history,  biography,  or  travels,  as 
most  of  us  did,  brought  back  under  his  arm  large 
quarto  volumes  of  pure  mathematics.  When  we  came 
to  recite  in  the  Calculus  or  Conic  Sections,  it  was  ob- 
served that  the  tutor  never  put  any  question  to  Peirce, 
but  having  set  him  going,  let  him  talk  as  long  as  he 
chose  without  interruption.  It  was  shrewdly  suspected 
that  this  was  done  from  fear  lest  the  respective  roles 
should  be  reversed,  and  the  examiner  might  become  the 
examinee.  We  also  could  foresee  in  our  forensic  dis- 
cussions the  future  eminence  of  Benjamin  Bobbins  Cur- 
tis, who  afterward  became  so  prominent  at  the  bar  and 


CAMBRIDGE.  35 

on  the  bench  of  the  United  States  Court.  His  papers, 
read  aloud  to  the  j)rofessor  of  philosophy,  were  so 
strictly  logical,  and  such  exhaustive  discussions,  that  it 
seemed  impossible  to  improve  on  them.  His  mind 
worked,  even  then,  with  the  accuracy  of  a  machine,  do- 
ing its  work  perfectly.  In  after  years  his  intelligence 
was  enlarged  by  ampler  knowledge,  was  capable  of 
more  extensive  research  and  more  sustained  investiga- 
tion ;  but  it  worked  as  accurately  in  those  college  pa- 
pers as  when  it  showed  its  irresistible  force  in  argu- 
ments at  the  bar  or  opinions  from  the  bench. 

It  was  not  till  we  were  well  through  college  that 
the  talent  of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  became  known 
to  most  of  his  classmates.  I  had  become  aware  of 
it  before,  for  I  sometimes  visited  him  at  his  father's 
house,  where  he  lived  the  first  two  or  three  years  of 
his  college  course.  Many  an  evening  I  passed  in  his 
room,  playing  chess,  eating  red  apples,  and  enjoying  his 
bright  conversation.  He  said  things  then  as  witty  as 
any  that  have  since  proceeded  from  his  tongue  and  pen. 
One  of  his  impromptus  lingers  in  my  memory.  We 
were  talking  of  metaphysics.  "  I  '11  tell  you,  James," 
said  he,  "  what  I  think  metaphysics  is  like.  It  is  like 
a  man  splitting  a  log.  When  it  is  done,  he  has  two 
more  to  split  !  " 

In  our  last  year  we  had  a  periodical  called  "  The  Col- 
legian ;  "  and  some  of  Holmes's  poems  were  published 
in  it,  which  have  all  the  flavor  and  piquancy  of  his  full- 
grown  Muse. 

Peirce,  Curtis,  and  Holmes  were  men  of  genius,  — 
one  mathematical,  one  logical,  and  the  third  poetical. 
Genius  shows  itself  very  early.  But  most  of  the  class 
gave  little  demonstration  of  what  they  were  to  do  after- 
ward. One  for  whom  we  felt  a  mysterious  admiration 
was  William  Henry  Channing,  the  favorite  nephew  of 
Dr.  W.  E.  Channing.  He  was  a  beautiful  boy,  with 
dark  hair  and  shaded  eyes,  and  an  expression  of  serious 


36  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

tliought,  earnest  purpose,  and  pure  aspiration.  The 
child,  in  him,  was  father  to  the  man.  But  he  was  si- 
lent among  his  companions,  lived  much  alone,  was 
thoughtful  rather  than  studious.  The  problems  of  life 
already  had  taken  possession  of  his  mind ;  and  often, 
in  an  evening  walk,  we  would  discuss  the  great  ques- 
tions of  destiny  and  freedom,  human  progress,  and 
superhuman  influences.  From  the  first  he  was  pure  in 
heart,  and  high-spirited  in  his  temper.  He  abhorred 
everything  mean,  selfish,  earthly.  James  H.  Perkins, 
his  cousin,  who  knew  him  from  a  child,  once  said  to  me, 
"  William  Henry  Channing  is  the  holiest  person  I  ever 
knew.  God  beset  him,  behind  and  before,  and  laid 
his  hand  upon  him."  He  was  always  seeking  to  get  to 
the  very  root  of  every  question,  but  he  was  obliged,  by 
the  structure  of  his  intellect,  to  look  at  both  sides. 
This  made  him  often  hesitating  and  unable  to  decide. 

One  of  my  friends,  with  whom  I  maintained  a  near 
friendship  as  long  as  he  lived,  was  George  T.  Davis. 
He  was  the  most  brilliant  of  men  in  conversation,  and 
was  so  regarded  through  life  by  all  who  knew  him. 
His  memory  was  prodigious,  and  he  quoted  in  conversa- 
tion innumerable  passages  from  all  authors,  —  grave 
or  gay,  lively  or  severe,  —  and  he  increased  the  interest 
of  these  quotations  by  his  own  delight  in  them. 

I  have  sometimes  wondered  that  our  teachers  then, 
and  so  many  teachers  since,  could  never  interest  young 
people  in  study.  There  is  one  element  in  the  human 
soul  which  is  common  to  all  mankind,  —  curiosity. 
Why  was  this  motive  never  appealed  to  ?  No  attempt 
was  made  to  interest  us  in  our  studies.  We  were  ex- 
pected to  wade  through  Homer  as  though  the  Iliad 
were  a  bog,  and  it  was  our  duty  to  get  along  at  such  a 
rate  ^j>e?'  diem.  Nothing  was  said  of  the  glory  and 
grandeur,  the  tenderness  and  charm  of  this  immortal 
epic.  The  melody  of  the  hexameters  was  never  sug- 
gested to  us.     Dr.  Popkin,  our  Greek  professor,  would 


CAMBRIDGE.  37 

look  over  his  spectacles  at  us,  and,  with  pencil  in  hand, 
mark  our  recitation  as  good  or  bad,  but  never  a  word  to 
help  us  over  a  difficulty,  or  to  explain  anything  obscure, 
still  less  to  excite  our  enthusiasm  for  the  greatest  poem 
of  antiquity.  But  this  was  not  peculiar  to  Dr.  Popkin, 
It  was  the  universal  custom,  with  but  one  exce]Dtion. 

Professor  John  Farrar,  in  his  lectures  on   philoso= 
phy,  and  in  his  other  teaching,  excited  a  living  inter- 
est  in  physics,  astronomy,  mechanics,  electricity,  and 
the  other  sciences.     Consequently  we  really  learned  in 
listening  to  him,  and  in  reciting  to  him.     I  can  repeat, 
to-d^y,  many  of   his  explanations  and   illustrations  in 
these  sciences.     He  was  a  man  instinct  with   nervous 
vivacity,  and  would  be  carried  away  by  the  fervor  of 
his  speech  and  his  interest  in  his  theme,  till  he  would 
quit  his  desk,  walk  to  and  fro  about  the  room,  talking 
and   gesticulating,   sometimes   stooping   till    his   body 
almost  touched  the  floor,  then  rising  till  he  stood  on 
the  tips  of  his  toes,  in  the  ardor  of  his  discourse.     He 
was   a  true  teacher,  but  almost  the  only  one  in  the 
whole  corps  of  the  professors.     We  went  through  Conic 
Sections  with  a  tutor  who  never  suggested  to  us,  from 
first  to  last,  that  these  were  the  curves  in  which  the 
planets  and  comets  moved,  and  that  by  learning  their 
laws  we  were  able  to  determine,  a  thousand  years  be- 
forehand, an  eclipse  of  the  sun  or  an  occultation  of  Ju- 
piter.    We  supposed  they  were  barren  studies  with  no 
practical  application.     Even  a  little  introduction,  giv- 
ing the  history  of  the  discovery  of  these  laws,  would 
have  interested  us.     But  nothing  was  said  to  awaken 
our  curiosity,  which  I  once  heard  Dr.  James  Walker 
say  should  be  the  chief  motive  appealed  to  by  teachers. 
But  in  fact  it  is  a  modern  discovery,  or  perhaps   a 
re-discovery,  that  the  duty  of  a  teacher  is  to  teach.     It 
w^as  at  that  time  assumed  that  it  was  his  duty  to  hear 
recitations.     Of  course,  if  he  gave  lectures,  he  was  to 
communicate   information,  but  never  in  the  recitation 


38  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

room.  To  explain  difficulties  to  the  young  men  before 
him,  to  help  them  along  by  happy  illustration  and  com- 
ment, to  untie  the  knots  too  hard  for  their  young  fin- 
gers to  loose,  —  this  would  have  been  thought  almost 
improper,  and,  certainly,  it  would  have  caused  great 
surprise  if  one  of  the  students  had  said,  "  I  cannot  un- 
derstand this  passage  in  Horace ;  will  you  be  so  kind 
as  to  explain  it  ?  "  But  why  not,  if  we  were  sent  to 
college  to  learn  ? 

The  root  of  the  evil  was  that  the  motive  relied  on  by 
the  college  system  was  not  cAiriosity,  but  emulation  ;  not 
the  love  of  knowledge,  but  the  desire  for  rank.  Every- 
thing went  to  rank  ;  recitations,  regular  attendance  at 
exercises,  good  behavior  in  our  rooms  and  elsewhere,  — 
all  were  counted  to  the  credit  of  rank  in  class.  But  as 
the  majority  of  the  class  soon  found  that  they  could  not 
attain  a  high  rank,  they  ceased  to  try,  and  contented 
themselves  with  reciting  well  enough  and  behaving  well 
enough  to  escape  punishment. 

The  assumption  in  those  days  was,  —  and  it  still  re- 
mains too  much  the  general  assumption  in  the  corps  of 
teachers  in  all  colleges,  —  that  young  men's  minds  and 
hearts  will  not  respond  to  generous  motives,  that  they 
must  be  coerced,  restrained,  punished,  and  driven,  not 
led  by  affection,  by  good-will,  by  the  love  of  truth,  by 
the  desire  for  knowledge,  by  the  ardor  of  attainment. 
But  our  real  study  was  done  from  these  latter  motives. 
When  I  recall  what  my  classmates  were  interested  in 
doing,  I  find  it  was  not  college  work,  which  might  have 
given  them  rank,  but  pursuits  outside  of  the  curricu- 
lum. They  did  not  put  their  strength  into  college 
themes,  but  into  articles  for  the  "  Collegian."  They 
did  not  read  Thucydides  and  Xenophon,  but  ]\Iacaulay 
and  Carlyle.  We  unearthed  old  tomes  in  the  college 
library,  and  while  our  English  professors  were  teaching 
us  out  of  Blair's  "  Rhetoric,"  we  were  forming  our  taste 
by  making  copious  extracts  from  Sir  Thomas  Browne, 


CAMBRIDGE.  39 

or  Ben  Jonson.  Our  real  professors  of  rhetoric  were 
Charles  Lamb  and  Coleridge,  Walter  Scott  and  Words- 
worth. I  recall  the  delight  which  George  Davis  and 
I  took  in  an  old  copy  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne  which 
we  stumbled  upon  in  the  college  library.  We  had 
scarcely  heard  the  name  ;  but  by  a  sure  instinct  we 
discovered  the  wit,  originality,  and  sagacity  of  this  old 
writer.  It  was  about  the  time  of  our  senior  year  that 
Professor  Marsh,  of  Vermont  University,  was  reprint- 
ing Coleridge's  "  Friend,"  his  "  Aids  to  Reflection,"  and 
his  "  Biographia  Literaria."  These  books  I  read  from 
time  to  time  during  several  years,  and  they  gave,  in  a 
high  degree,  incitement  and  nourishment  to  my  intel- 
lect. Coleridge  the  poet  I  had  known  and  loved.  Cole- 
ridge the  philosopher  confirmed  my  longing  for  a  higher 
philosophy  than  that  of  John  Locke  and  David  Hart- 
ley, the  metaphysicians  most  in  vogue  with  the  earlier 
Unitarians  down  to  the  time  of  Channing. 

The  books  of  Locke,  Priestley,  Hartley,  and  Belsham 
were  in  my  grandfather  Freeman's  library,  and  the 
polemic  of  Locke  against  innate  ideas  was  one  of  my 
earliest  philosophical  lessons.  But  something  within 
me  revolted  at  all  such  attempts  to  explain  soul  out  of 
sense,  deducing  mind  from  matter,  or  tracing  the  origin 
of  ideas  to  nerves,  vibrations,  and  vibratiuncles.  So  I 
concluded  I  had  no  taste  for  metaphysics  and  gave  it 
up,  until  Coleridge  showed  me  from  Kant  that  though 
knowledge  begins  icith  experience  it  does  not  come 
fro77i  experience.  Then  I  discovered  that  I  was  born  a 
transcendentalist ;  and  smiled  when  I  afterwards  read, 
in  one  of  Jacobi's  works,  that  he  had  gone  through 
exactly  the  same  experience.  Thus  I  became  a  great 
reader  of  Coleridge,  and  was  quite  ready  to  accept  his 
distinction  between  the  reason  and  the  understanding 
judging  by  sense.  This  distinction  helped  me  much  in 
my  subsequent  studies  of  theology.  It  enabled  me  to 
distinguish  between  truth  as  seen  by  the  reason,  and  its 


40  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

statement  as  formulated  by  the  understanding.  It  en- 
abled me  to  put  logic  in  its  proper  place,  and  see  that 
its  function  was  not  the  discovery  of  truth,  but  that 
of  arranging,  methodizing,  and  harmonizing  verbal  pro- 
positions in  regard  to  it.  I  could  see  that  those  who 
had  the  same  spiritual  experience,  and  who  beheld  the 
same  truth,  might  differ  in  their  statements  concerning 
it,  and  that  Avhile  truth  was  unchanging  and  eternal, 
theology  might  alter  and  improve  from  age  to  age. 

This  distinction,  when  once  clearly  seen,  puts  an  end 
to  bigotry,  at  least  to  honest  and  involuntary  bigotry. 
Take,  for  example,  the  doctrinal  dispute  concerning  the 
person  of  Christ.  The  Trinitarian  says,  "  He  is  God.'' 
The  Unitarian  says,  "He  is  not  God."  Each  thinks 
that  if  he  is  right,  the  other  is  absolutely  wrong,  and  is 
denying  an  essential  truth.  If  the  truth  is  coincident 
with  its  doctrinal  statement,  then  one  or  the  other  is 
indeed  in  very  grave  error.  This  was  the  old  way  of 
looking  at  it.  But,  according  to  the  distinction  of  Cole- 
ridge, the  vital  truth  perceived  by  the  reason  is  not 
the  same  as  the  doctrinal  statement  enunciated  by  the 
understanding.  The  reason  sees  in  Christ  something 
divine,  finds  in  him  a  visible  manifestation  of  the  in- 
visible and  eternal.  In  this  intellectual  vision  both 
the  Trinitarian  and  the  Unitarian  may  be  one,  though 
when  they  come  to  express  it  as  a  doctrine  they  differ. 
The  essential  fact  is  the  vision  of  truth  as  beheld  by  the 
reason,  not  its  doctrinal  form  as  worked  out  by  the  un- 
derstanding. Thus  Coleridge's  metaphysical  statement 
has  really  put  an  end  to  much  conscientious  bigotry  in 
the  modern  church. 

One  injurious  result  of  the  college  method  of  making 
emulation  rather  than  curiosity  the  chief  motive  for 
work  was  that  the  recitations  under  this  system  wasted 
the  time  wanted  for  study.  Three  hours  each  day  were 
given  in  the  Freshman  and  Sophomore  years  to  recita- 
tions.    If  we  had  been  taught  anything  during  these 


CAMBRIDGE.  41 

hours,  the  time  would  not  have  been  lost.  But  the 
teacher  was  there,  not  to  teach,  but  to  giv^e  marks  to 
each  student  according  to  the  merit  of  his  recitation. 
Pencil  in  hand,  he  listened  in  silence  to  the  student's 
translation  or  solution  of  a  problem,  and  having  affixed 
the  proper  number  to  his  name,  went  on  to  the  next. 
As  only  a  few  of  the  class  recited  well  enough  for  us  to 
learn  anything  from  what  they  said,  those  hours  were 
not  only  wasted,  but  put  us  into  a  condition  of  mental 
torpor.  "VVe  had  three  lessons  a  day,  each  of  which 
ought,  by  right,  to  have  two  hours  of  study  given  to  it 
in  preparation.  That  would  be  six  hours  of  study. 
Add  three  recitations,  and  it  makes  nine  hours.  Add 
one  for  exercise,  one  and  a  half  for  meals,  and  how 
much  remains  for  society,  amusement,  general  reading, 
writing  letters,  college  clubs,  etc.  ? 

Four  hours'  confinement  to  real  study  is  quite  as 
much  as  the  average  human  brain  will  endure,  and  few 
in  the  class  did  more  than  this.  For  myself,  as  Greek 
was  to  me  the  most  difficult  study,  I  usually  gave  to 
it  two  hours.  As  I  read  Latin  with  a  good  deal  of 
facility,  I  often  did  not  look  at  my  Livy  or  Tacitus  be- 
fore going  into  recitation.  As  mathematics  was  also 
comparatively  easy  to  me,  I  gave  it  about  an  hour,  thus 
studying  only  three  hours  a  day.  And  I  think  this 
about  as  much  as  ought  to  be  required  of  a  youth  of 
fifteen.  If  to  this  had  been  added  three  hours  of  inter- 
esting instruction  in  the  recitation  room,  we  should 
probably  have  graduated  with  some  fair  knowledge  of 
what  we  had  been  devoting  five  years  in  school  and  four 
years  in  college  to  learn.  In  fact,  however,  in  a  class  of 
eighty  or  ninety  young  men,^  not  more  than  a  dozen 

1  Though  the  college  catalogue  gives  the  number  who  graduated 
as  fifty-nine,  there  were,  at  different  times  during  the  four  years, 
twenty-one  others  who  were  connected  for  a  longer  or  shorter  time 
with  the  class,  making  the  whole  number  who  were  at  some  time 
members  of  the  class,  eighty. 


42  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

were  able,  when  they  took  their  degree,  to  read  a 
Greek  or  Latin  book,  or  to  solve  a  problem  in  the 
higher  mathematics. 

Worse  than  the  absence  of  knowledge  was  the  want 
of  interest  left  by  this  system.  In  the  Boston  Latin 
School  I  had  been  interested  in  Ovid  and  Virgil,  in 
Anacreon  and  Lucian,  in  algebra  and  geometry.  But 
while  in  college.  Homer  and  Hesiod,  Sophocles  and 
Euripides,  became  distasteful,  and  I  worried  through 
my  mathematics  simply  to  avoid  bad  marks  in  recita- 
tion, each  day  forgetting  what  I  had  learned  the  day 
before.  There  was  an  immoral  influence  in  a  system 
which  produced  such  habits  in  well-disposed  boys ; 
which  taught  them  to  shirk  study,  to  conceal  their 
ignorance,  and  to  make  use  of  means  which  they  knew 
were  forbidden.  One  of  these  prohibited  methods  was 
the  use  of  translations.  But  why  should  not  boys  use 
translations  in  learning  their  lessons,  if  they  succeed  in 
being  able  to  read  them  without  the  translation  ?  A 
Latin  dictionary  is  only  a  collection  of  Latin  words 
translated  into  English.  Why  not  prohibit  the  use  of 
a  dictionary,  and  insist  on  the  student  finding  out  by 
intuition  the  meaning  of  the  foreign  word  ? 

Notwithstanding  these  drawbacks,  our  years  at  Har- 
vard College  were  by  no  means  wasted.  What  we  did 
not  learn  in  the  regular  course  of  study,  we  learned  out- 
side of  it.  What  Ave  did  not  acquire  from  books,  we 
taught  each  other.  Each  class  was  a  little  world,  a 
microcosm.  Here  were  collected  all  the  chief  varieties 
of  human  character ;  here  were  displayed  the  human 
passions,  the  little  vanities,  generosities,  fine  and  coarse 
impulses,  noble  and  mean  motives,  with  which  we  were 
to  come  in  contact  in  the  world.  College  gave  us  pre- 
liminary experience  of  all  this,  which  was  a  good  pre- 
paration for  life.  It  was  a  world  on  a  small  scale,  but 
where  the  play  of  character  was  more  apparent,  and  the 
motives  of  action  were  hardly  concealed.    In  class  inter- 


CAMBRIDGE.  43 

course  were  struggles  for  precedence,  underhand  and 
open  attempts  to  cany  points,  rivalries  for  popularity. 
What  ardor  we  put  into  our  small  controversies,  how 
we  admired  and  extolled  this  or  that  leader,  in  our  little 
puppet-show  world  !  It  was  not  a  bad  preparation  for 
life,  and  I  have  observed  that  the  chances  of  success 
in  the  world  are  much  in  favor  of  one  who  has  been 
through  college.  He  gets  a  certain  mental  discipline, 
a  power  of  self-control,  a  balance  of  faculty,  and  an 
insight  into  character,  which  are  very  helpful.  This 
comes  in  part  from  the  habit  of  systematic  study ;  but 
still  more,  as  I  judge,  from  this  boiling  cauldron  of 
juvenile  struggles,  sympathies,  antipathies,  successes, 
and  disappointments.  Thus  I  think  it  a  good  thing  to 
go  through  college,  even  though  one  should  accomplish 
very  little  in  the  student's  curriculum. 

It  so  chanced  that  in  our  Freshman  year,  Dr.  FoUen, 
recently  from  Germany,  was  enabled,  by  some  happy  in- 
fluence, to  introduce  gymnastic  exercises  into  Harvard 
College.  We  began  with  a  large  room,  fitted  up  with 
parallel  and  horizontal  bars,  ladders,  climbing  poles, 
wooden  horses,  dumb-bells,  and  the  like.  Afterward 
the  triangular  piece  of  ground,  called  the  Delta,  where 
Memorial  Hall  now  stands,  was  fitted  up  with  a  more 
elaborate  apparatus.  Beside  the  rest,  there  was  an  up- 
right mast,  about  seventy  feet  high,  stayed  by  guys, 
which  ran  from  the  top  of  the  mast  in  opposite  direc- 
tions to  the  ground,  at  an  angle  of  about  thirty  degrees. 
Halfway  up  the  mast  was  a  platform,  from  which  large 
beams  ran  out  on  either  side,  at  right  angles,  supported 
at  each  end  by  strong  posts.  To  this  platform  one  could 
ascend  by  a  ladder,  but  from  the  platform  to  the  top 
he  must  climb  the  bare  mast,  aided  only  by  a  knotted 
rope. 

I  was  always  fond  of  climbing,  having  a  good  deal 
of  the  balancing  organ,  which  the  phrenologists  call 
iveight.     This  is  a  specimen  of  the  defective  nomen- 


44  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

clature  of  phrenologists,  arising  from  the  fact  that  they 
often  gave  to  an  organ  a  name  derived  from  a  single 
function,  instead  of  a  name  which  should  express  all  its 
applications.  A  more  scientific  name  for  the  organ  in 
question  would  be  inomentwri.  It  is  the  physical  fac- 
ulty in  animals  and  men  by  which  they  instinctively 
measure  the  amount  of  pressure,  resistance,  moving 
force,  required  in  any  muscular  act.  Being  fond  of 
climbing,  and  feeling  safe  at  any  elevation,  I  took  plea- 
sure on  the  mast,  learning  to  go  up  the  rope  to  the  top, 
and  even  to  stand  upright  on  the  little  iron  cap  at  the 
summit.  These  open-air  exercises  were  very  conducive 
to  health.  While  at  school,  I  had  frequent  attacks  of 
fever  and  pulmonary  trouble,  but  after  two  or  three 
years  of  gymnasium  exercise  I  became  free  from  these 
tendencies,  and  the  foundation  was  laid  for  the  physical 
health  which  has  been  one  of  the  blessings  of  my  life. 

Boating,  which  now  prevails  so  largely  in  Harvard, 
had  not  then  come.  But  we  had  baseball  and  football 
in  their  seasons.  The  college  government  also  paid  a 
fencing-master,  M.  Vailly,  an  old  soldier  in  the  Napo- 
leonic wars,  to  give  instruction  to  four  monitors  in  each 
class  ;  who,  in  turn,  taught  the  rest.  I  was  fortunately 
selected  or  elected  to  be  one  of  these  monitors,  and  so 
was  taught  to  fence  by  this  skillful  maitre  d'armes. 
My  classmate,  Edward  D.  Sohier,  was  another  monitor, 
and  excelled  us  all  in  this,  as  in  most  other  athletic  ex- 
ercises. He  was  M.  Vailly's  best  pupil ;  and  when  a 
rival  teacher  of  fencing  challenged  our  master  to  a  trial 
of  skill,  Vailly  refused,  but  offered  his  pupil,  Sohier,  as 
a  substitute.  Great  was  our  excitement  on  this  occa- 
sion. The  fencing  room,  in  University  Hall,  was 
crowded  with  anxious  students,  fearful  lest  our  cham- 
pion should  be  defeated.  But  Sohier  played  a  close  and 
cautious  game,  contenting  himself  with  parrying  the 
lunges  of  his  opponent,  till  the  latter  incautiously  left 
a  little  opening,  of  which  Sohier  instantly  availed  him- 


CAMBRIDGE.  45 

self  and  touched  the  fencing-master  on  the  breast  with 
the  button  of  his  foil,  which  he  then  threw  aside,  and, 
taking  off  the  wire  mask  from  his  face,  wisely  declined 
any  further  contention.  I  have  since  sometimes  avou- 
dered  whether  he  had  inherited  any  of  this  aptitude  for 
arms  from  the  old  knights  of  Vermandois  and  Sohier, 
from  whom  he  is  descended.-^ 

At  the  beginning  of  my  Sophomore  year  I  met  with 
an  adventure  which  was  exceedingly  distressing  and  a 
great  shock.  AVe  were  to  write  our  first  English  theme, 
and  Professor  Edward  Channing  gave  us  for  its  subject 
"  The  Difficulties  of  Composition."  The  themes  were 
to  be  handed  in  at  the  end  of  a  fortnight.  I  sat  down 
immediately  and  began  mine,  and  wrote  a  part  of  it, 
carelessly  leaving  the  rough  draft  on  my  table.  When 
the  themes  were  sent  back  by  the  professor,  I  found 
that  he  had  written  on  mine  the  name  of  one  of  my 
class,  whose  room  was  in  the  same  entry,  and  whom  I 
will  call  B.  D.  I  went  to  him,  and  he  showed  me  his 
theme,  on  which  the  professor  had  written  my  name. 
On  looking  at  it  I  perceived  that  the  first  part  was 
identical  with  my  own.  It  had  been  copied  almost 
verbatim,  though,    fortunately  for  me,  not  wholly  so, 

^  I  recollect  sometimes  g^oing-  with  Edward  Sohier  very  early  in  the 
cold  mornings  of  November,  to  shoot  ducks  on  Fresh  Pond.  I  do  not 
think  we  shot  many ;  but  we  imagined  we  were  having  sport,  while 
we  lay  hidden  in  our  punt  among-  the  reeds,  and  were  half  frozen  with 
cold.  How  large  a  part  of  our  pleasures  are  imaginary !  The  boy 
thinks  he  likes  smoking  a  cigar,  though  it  makes  him  feel  very  badly ; 
but  he  perseveres,  because  he  imagines  it  a  manly  enjoyment.  To 
impress  on  boys  the  difference  between  true  and  false  manliness  would 
do  them  a  great  good.  Every  Sunday-school  teacher  who  has  boys  in 
his  class  should  make  this  his  aim. 

After  we  graduated,  I  did  not  meet  Edward  Sohier  during  many 
years.  Meantime  he  had  become  a  leading  lawyer  at  the  Suffolk  Bar. 
One  day  I  had  occasion  to  go  to  his  office.  On  enteiing,  I  saw  him 
standing  at  his  desk  at  a  distance,  in  an  inner  room.  He  lifted  his 
head,  recognized  me,  and  said,  "How  are  you,  Jim?"  I  replied, 
"  How  axe  you,  Ned  ?  "  and  we  were  boys  again. 


46  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

for  in  some  places  the  copyist  had  not  been  able  to  fol- 
low my  scrawl.  In  this  instance  only,  during  the  course 
of  my  life,  has  my  bad  writing  been  an  advantage  to 
me.  I  charged  B.  D.  with  copying  my  theme,  which 
he  denied  doing,  and  we  went  together  to  see  the  pro- 
fessor. Each  having  asserted  that  his  composition  was 
his  own  work,  the  professor  said,  "  That  is  simply  im- 
possible. Either  one  of  you  has  copied  from  the  other 
or  both  of  you  have  copied  the  part  which  you  have  in 
common  from  a  third  party.  Settle  between  you  which 
it  is,  and  let  me  know."  I  was  thunderstruck  at  thus 
being  exposed  to  the  charge  of  having  stolen  my  theme. 
I  knew  it  was  false,  but  how  prove  it  as  long  as  B.  D. 
also  denied  the  charge  ?  Finally  we  agreed  to  leave  it 
to  a  jury  of  our  classmates,  each  of  us  to  select  six.  I 
recollect  selecting  Benjamin  E.  Curtis  and  William 
Hemy  Channing  among  mine,  and  that  when  I  asked 
William  Channing  to  be  one  of  my  jurors  he  took  my 
hand,  and  said,  "  Yes,  James,  and  I  am  quite  sure  that 
you  never  did  so  mean  a  thing."  He  never  knew  what 
a  comfort  that  expression  of  confidence  brought  to  me 
in  m}^  sore  distress.  Perhaps  it  may  be  thought  that  as 
he  was  to  be  on  the  jury  he  had  no  right  to  prejudge  the 
case.  He  did  not  prejudge  it,  nor  did  he  decide  that 
the  other  party  in  the  transaction  had  stolen  my  theme, 
but  he  expressed  a  confidence  in  my  integrity  based  on 
his  knowledge  of  my  character;  and  this  I  think  he 
had  a  right  to  do.  This  principle  I  afterward  expressed 
in  the  lines  beginning,  — 

"  Judge  the  people  by  their  actions  —  't  is  a  ride  you  often  get." 

When  the  jury  met,  and  we  had  made  our  statements, 
each  of  us  was  asked  when  he  wrote  his  theme.  B.  D. 
incautiously  admitted  that  he  had  written  the  whole  of 
his  the  night  before  it  was  handed  in.  I  proved  by  the 
testimony  of  a  friend  that  he  had  seen  on  my  table  and 
read  that  part  of  the  composition  which  was  common 


CAMBRIDGE.  47 

to  both,  a  week  before  the  time  when  they  were  pre- 
sented to  the  professor.  This  settled  the  question.  But 
there  was  another  point  in  my  favor.  I  had  quoted, 
from  my  reading  in  Vicesimus  Knox's  "Elegant  Ex- 
tracts/' these  lines  :  — 

"  Be  careful,  wlien  invention  fails, 
To  scratch  your  head,  and  bite  your  nails." 

But  B.  D.  had  it  in  his  theme,  "2:)are  your  nails."  I 
asked  him  to  tell  the  jury  where  the  quotation  was 
from,  which  he  was  unable  to  do.  I  then  said  that  the 
lines  were  from  Dean  Swift,  and  pointed  out  the  blun- 
der he  had  committed  in  copying  from  my  MS.  The 
result  was  that  the  jury  decided  the  case  in  my  favor. 
B.  D.  did  not  confess  what  he  had  done  until  many 
years  after.  I  had  no  further  intercourse  with  him 
while  we  were  in  college  ;  but  thirty  or  more  years 
after,  he  came  to  see  me,  expressing  great  sorrow  for 
the  action,  and  till  his  death  manifested  for  me  a  warm 
friendship.  I  never  knew  what  tempted  him  to  this 
act,  which  would  necessarily  expose  him  to  suspicion. 
It  was  not  want  of  ability,  for  when  he  came  to  read 
aloud  a  forensic  he  showed  considerable  power.  Pos- 
sibly, when  he  copied  the  paper  on  my  table,  it  did  not 
occur  to  him  that  it  was  the  beginning  of  my  theme. 
But  if  so,  why  did  he  not  say  so  ?  This  event  was 
very  painful ;  for  though  the  matter  was  decided  in  my 
favor,  I  could  not  be  sure  that  some  mist  of  suspicion 
might  not  rest  on  my  character. 

During  my  second  year  in  the  Divinity  School,  Dr. 
Spiirzheim  came  to  Boston,  and  gave  lectures  on  phre- 
nology, which  I  attended.  I  went  with  a  prejudice 
against  the  system,  supposing  it  had  a  tendency  toward 
materialism.  I  thought  that  it  attempted  to  deduce 
mind  from  body,  and  to  make  the  organization  the 
source  of  thought  and  feeling.  But  Dr.  Spurzheim's 
first  lecture  removed  this   objection.      He   contended 


48  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

that  the  brain  is  the  organ  of  mind  only  as  the  eye  is 
the  organ  of  sight.  It  is  not  the  eye  which  sees,  nor 
the  brain  which  thinks.  The  mind  sees  by  means  of 
the  eye,  and  thinks  by  means  of  the  brain.  It  has  al- 
ways been  suspected  that  the  brain  is  tne  organ  of 
thought.  The  phrenologists  go  further,  and  specialize 
the  functions  of  the  different  parts  of  the  brain. 

The  lectures  of  Dr.  Spiirzheim  were  very  interesting, 
combining  large  generalizations  with  minute  practical 
details.  Many  of  the  points  which  the  old  systems  of 
metaphysics  had  left  obscure  were  made  plain  at  once 
by  this  searching  analysis.  Memory  had  been  treated  as 
a  single  faculty,  reason  as  another.  But  Dr.  Spiirzheim 
showed  by  numerous  examples  that  each  organ  has  its 
own  memory.  Thus,  one  who  has  a  large  organ  of 
"  Language  "  but  a  small  organ  of  "  Form  "  remembers 
names  but  not  faces,  and  vice  vet'sa. 

A  powerful  influence  was  exerted  on  the  minds  of 
young  persons  by  the  coming  of  Dr.  Spiirzheim.  This 
influence  was  beneficial  in  many  ways,  and  that  with- 
out regard  to  the  truth  or  error  of  his  system.  His  ob- 
servations on  human  conduct  and  character  were  clear 
and  full ;  he  was  so  overflowing  with  anecdotes  out  of 
his  own  experience  to  illustrate  his  theme,  his  views 
were  so  comprehensive,  kindly,  tolerant,  and  sympa- 
thetic, that  he  roused  a  new  interest  in  mental  philo- 
sophy and  the  study  of  m^^n.  Metaphysics,  a  doubtful, 
uncertain  study  heretofore,  with  small  practical  results, 
at  once  became  interesting  and  adapted  for  daily  use. 
Phrenology  had  a  marked  influence  on  the  methods 
of  education,  as  was  shown  by  its  becoming  the  chief 
motor  force  in  the  labors  of  Horace  Mann.  It  left  un- 
touched, indeed,  the  higher  problems  of  philosophy,  the 
nature  of  the  soul,  the  principle  of  freedom,  the  origin 
of  those  conceptions  which  take  hold  of  the  Infinite  and 
the  Eternal.  But  in  its  lower  sphere  of  action  it  usu- 
ally was  a  great  benefit  to  those  who  became  interested 


CAMBRIDGE.  49 

in  it.     It  placed  our  higher  speculations  on  a  basis  of 
positive  experience. 

One  of  the  real  benefits  of  this  study  was  that  it  in- 
spired courage  and  hope  in  those  who  were  depressed 
by  the  consciousness  of  some  inability.  So  much  stress 
had  been  laid  in  our  schools  on  verbal  memory  that  it 
was  a  blessing  to  many  a  child  deficient  in  this  power 
to  learn  that  memory  constituted  a  very  insignificant 
part  of  the  human  intelligence.  Phrenology  also  showed 
us  how,  as  Goethe  says,  our  virtues  and  vices  grow  out 
of  the  same  roots  ;  how  every  good  tendency  has  its 
danger,  and  every  dangerous  power  may  be  so  restrained 
and  guided  as  to  be  a  source  of  good-  It  explained  that 
the  organic  tendencies  in  themselves  have  no  moral 
quality,  but  become  virtues  and  vices  as  they  are  guided 
or  neglected  by  the  higher  spiritual  powers.  These  dis- 
tinctions were  of  great  value  and  aided  us,  quite  apart 
from  any  judgment  on  the  truth  or  error  of  the  system. 


CHAPTEE   V. 

KENTUCKY. 

When  the  last  year  of  my  study  in  the  Divinity 
School  at  Harvard  was  approaching  its  end,  I  began  to 
think  seriously  of  my  future  course.  I  could  either  re- 
main in  New  England,  and  endeavor  to  be  settled  as 
minister  of  some  existing  society,  or  I  could  go  out  to 
the  West  and  try  to  build  up  a  society  there.  The  last 
plan  commended  itself  to  my  mind  for  various  reasons. 
It  was  more  of  a  missionary  work.  It  would  be  harder 
at  first,  but  would  open  a  wider  field  of  activity  and  in- 
fluence as  time  went  on.  I  was  afraid  that  if  I  were 
settled  in  an  old-fashioned  Unitarian  society  I  should 
gradually  subside  into  routine  ;  while  in  the  West  there 
would  be  no  routine,  but  I  should  be  free  to  originate 
such  methods  as  might  seem  necessary  and  useful. 
Then  I  wished  to  test  my  own  power  and  the  value  of 
what  I  had  to  saj^  If  I  preached  Unitarian  doctrine  to 
a  congregation  which  already  believed  it,  I  should  not 
be  able  to  judge  of  the  efficacy  of  what  I  said.  But  if 
I  could  make  converts  in  a  community  Avhere  my  belief 
was  unpopular,  I  should  be  convinced  of  its  adaptation 
to  human  needs,  and  so  be  able  to  speak  with  more 
strength  of  conviction.  Also,  it  seemed  probable  that 
my  powers,  whatever  they  were,  would  be  better  devel- 
oped in  an  atmosphere  where  there  was  more  freedom 
of  thought,  and  where  public  opinion  carried  less 
weight  of  authority.  On  inquiry,  I  found  that  the 
church  in  Louisville,  Kentucky,  which  had  been  estab- 
lished a  year,  needed  a  preacher,  Mr.  George  Chapman 


KENTUCKY.  51 

being  obliged  to  relinquish  that  position  on  account  of 
ill  health.  Having  agreed  to  go  to  Louisville  and  take 
his  place,  I  set  out  directly  after  graduating  from  the 
Divinity  School.  I  preached  only  once  before  going. 
This  first  service  was  in  Bernard  Whitman's  church,  at 
Waltham,  where  the  congregation  consisted  chiefly  of 
those  who  worked  in  the  Waltham  factories.  My  grand- 
mother, hearing  where  I  was  to  preach,  told  me  I  might 
take  for  my  text  the  verse  in  Proverbs,  "  She  seeketh 
wool  and  flax,  and  spinneth  diligently  with  her  hands." 
However,  I  took  for  the  text  of  my  first  sermon,  "What- 
soever thy  hand  findeth  to  do,  do  it  with  thy  might ; " 
and  the  subject  was  the  enforcement  of  Carlyle's  fa- 
vorite doctrine,  "  Do  the  nearest  duty."  I  recollect  that 
after  writing  this  sermon,  I  felt  as  if  I  had  said  all  I 
knew,  and  should  never  be  able  to  preach  another; 
which  is,  I  believe,  a  not  uncommon  experience  with 
beginners. 

Traveling  in  1833  was  very  different  from  what  it  is 
now.  The  only  railroad  on  which  trains  were  drawn 
by  locomotives  was  a  short  one  crossing  the  State  of 
Delaware.  All  the  rest  of  the  journey  between  Boston 
and  Kentucky  was  performed  by  the  old  stage-coach 
or  by  steamboat.  The  stage-coach  varied  in  its  rate 
of  motion.  From  two  to  three  miles  an  hour  was  the 
average  in  the  West,  and  five  or  six  miles  where  the 
roads  were  better.  In  many  parts  of  the  W^est  we  trav- 
eled on  what  was  called  the  corduroy  road,  which  con- 
sisted of  logs  laid  side  by  side  over  swamps  ;  and  as 
some  of  these  logs  would  rock,  break,  sink  down,  or  rise 
up,  riding  over  them  was  more  of  an  exercise  than  a 
pleasure.  In  other  places,  where  the  roads  were  of  clay, 
they  would  be  so  gullied  by  the  rain  as  hardly  to  leave 
room  for  the  four  wheels  of  the  stage.  Once,  going 
down  a  hill  at  midday,  on  a  walk,  the  stage-coach  in 
which  I  was  riding  overturned,  because  there  was  no 
place  left  on  the  road  where  it  could  stand  upright. 


52  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

At  another  time,  when  I  was  sitting  with  the  driver, 
going  down  an  exceedingly  steep  hill  near  Winchester, 
in  Virginia,  the  brake,  which  kept  the  wheels  from 
turning,  became  so  bent  that  it  would  not  work;  the 
horses,  accustomed  to  the  brake,  could  not  hold  back 
without  it ;  and  the  stage  began  to  go  faster  and  faster 
toward  a  precipice  in  front,  where  the  road  made  a  sharp 
turn.  The  driver  said  to  me,  *^I  am  going  to  over- 
turn the  coach,  else  we  shall  go  over  the  precipice ;  be 
ready  to  jump  off."  So  he  drove  into  the  bank  on  one 
side  of  the  road,  and  overturned  the  stage  as  gently  as 
possible.  He  and  I  jumped  off  as  it  was  going  over,  but 
the  inside  passengers  were  much  surprised  at  this  un- 
expected event,  which,  however,  was  the  only  way  of 
saving  their  lives.  These  drivers,  all  over  the  West 
and  South,  were  mostly  from  New  England,  and  were 
intelligent,  sober,  and  faithful  men.  The  horses  were 
usually  raised  in  Vermont  or  New  Hampshire ;  for 
those  in  the  South  were  not  strong  enough  or  tough 
enough  to  do  the  work. 

Once,  in  Kentucky,  when  I  was  arguing  in  a  news- 
paper on  the  evils  of  horse-racing,  my  opponent  de- 
fended the  system  on  the  ground  that  it  improved  the 
breed  of  horses  ;  and  I  replied  by  showing  that  the 
horses  raised  for  racing  in  Kentucky  were  too  light  for 
harness  and  could  hardly  be  used  except  in  the  saddle, 
so  that  the  draught-horses  were  brought  from  New 
England.     My  reply  was  considered  satisfactory. 

Inconvenient  as  it  was  to  be  overturned  in  the  day, 
it  was  still  worse  in  the  night.  This  happened  to 
me  thrice,  and  each  time  in  Ohio.  The  first  overturn 
was  on  the  road  from  Cincinnati  to  Cleveland.  It  was 
raining  hard,  we  were  passing  through  the  forest,  and 
the  tall  trees  on  either  side  completely  shut  out  the 
light,  so  that  it  was  impossible  to  see  anything.  The 
wheels  on  one  side  went  into  a  ditch,  and  the  coach 
upset  where  the   mud  was  very  deep   and  very  soft. 


KENTUCKY.  53 

There  was  a  lady  inside,  and  after  the  men  had  crawled 
out  through  the  door  which  was  uppermost,  we  lifted 
the  lady  out,  and  placed  her  on  the  side  of  the  coach, 
while  the  driver  went  for  light  and  help.  Another 
time  we  found  ourselves  utterly  lost  in  the  middle  of 
the  night  in  a  wood.  In  the  darkness  the  horses  had 
lost  the  road  and  wandered  into  the  forest.  The  coach 
stopped,  and  the  driver  said,  "  You  had  better  get  out, 
for  I  do  not  know  where  we  are."  Some  one  struck  a 
light,  and  we  found  that  the  horses  had  carried  the 
coach  to  the  top  of  a  little  hill  among  the  trees.  It 
was  one  of  the  grand  forests,  not  uncommon  in  the 
West,  which  had  not  been  touched  by  the  axe,  where 
the  undergrowth  had  disappeared,  and  the  great  trees 
stood  so  far  apart  that  one  could  drive  a  carriage  be- 
tween them  over  the  soft  turf.  There  were  seldom  any 
fences  beside  the  road  in  those  days  ;  and  once,  in  Ken- 
tucky, having  occasion  to  go  from  one  road  to  another 
which  was  half  a  mile  off,  I  drove  my  horse  and  wagon 
directly  through  the  forest. 

Sometimes  serious  injuries  resulted  from  accidents  of 
Western  travel ;  limbs  were  broken  by  the  overturning 
of  the  stage,  and  occasionally  some  person  was  killed, 
but  commonly  the  passengers  escaped  with  bruises. 
Once,  in  Pennsylvania,  we  had  ridden  all  day  in  the 
coach,  and  eaten  nothing  from  breakfast-time  until  nine 
in  the  evening.  Then  we  reached  Bedford  and  had  a 
good  dinner,  and  set  off  again  feeling  very  comfortable. 
There  were  nine  passengers  in  the  stage,  and  most  of 
them  soon  fell  asleep.  But  I  was  kept  awake  by  the 
singular  movements  of  the  carriage.  The  horses  were 
evidently  running,  and  occasionally  we  banged  violently 
against  a  root  or  stone.  In  fact,  the  driver  was  intoxi- 
cated, and  unable  to  manage  the  horses,  which  were  run- 
ning away.  As  long  as  the  road  was  smooth  and  good 
no  accident  happened ;  but,  after  a  while,  the  horses  got 
out  of  the  road  and  dragged  us  across  a  rocky  held. 


54  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

where  the  stage  was  violently  overturned  and  very 
much  shattered.  We  were  all  bruised,  but  too  closely 
packed  to  be  seriously  hurt.  We  succeeded  in  getting 
out,  and  found  our  driver,  partly  sobered  by  the  acci- 
dent, preparing  to  ride  back  on  one  of  the  horses  to 
bring  help  from  Bedford.  A  new  carriage  and  driver 
came,  but  the  man  who  had  overturned  us  went  on  also 
to  the  next  change  of  horses,  where  he  told  a  pitiful 
story  to  the  passengers  of  what  his  family  would  suffer 
if  he  lost  his  place,  and  most  of  them  signed  a  paper, 
against  my  protest,  exempting  him  from  blame.  Shortly 
after,  I  saw  in  a  newspaper  that  another  stage  had  been 
overturned  in  that  neighborhood,  probably  by  the  same 
driver,  and  that  one  of  the  passengers  had  his  leg 
broken. 

The  national  road  from  Wheeling,  Virginia,  to  Colum- 
bus, Ohio,  had  been  built  by  the  United  States  Govern- 
ment as  the  beginning  of  a  system  of  internal  improve- 
ments. It  had  been  much  opposed  on  this  account  by 
the  Democratic  party,  who  thought  that  the  national 
government  ought  not  to  take  part  in  such  improve- 
ments. They  did  not  prevent  the  road  from  being 
built,  but  they  prevented  it  from  being  mended.  It 
was  a  macadamized  road,  but  had  been  improperly  built, 
so  that  when  I  went  over  it,  it  was  in  stony  ruts,  and 
the  passengers  were  tossed  about  in  all  directions.  On 
one  occasion  it  took  four  hours  for  the  stage-coach  to 
go  twelve  miles  on  this  macadamized  road. 

Yet  there  was  something  by  no  means  wholly  un- 
pleasant in  these  long  journeys  by  the  stage-coach.  In 
the  summer  especially,  if  one  rode  on  the  outside  with 
the  driver,  as  was  my  custom,  he  was  bathed  in  a  con- 
stant current  of  fresh  air,  was  free  from  dust,  and  could 
enjoy  the  view  of  the  ever-varying  scenery.  When  we 
reached  the  top  of  the  Alleghanies,  the  eye  ranged 
over  a  vast  panorama  of  forest  and  meadow,  where 
green  patches  indicated  farms,  and  through  which  the 


KENTUCKY.  65 

blue  streams  wended  their  tranquil  way.  Sometimes 
we  came  to  a  place  where  a  tornado  had  cut  its  resist- 
less course  through  the  trees,  making  a  broad  pathway 
where  for  miles  all  the  timber  was  leveled.  Once,  on 
reaching  the  summit  of  a  mountain  in  Virginia  not 
far  from  the  White  Sulphur  Springs,  early  in  the 
morning,  we  saw  the  mists  rolling  like  a  great  ocean 
below,  reflecting  from  their  upper  surface  the  rays  of 
the  rising  sun,  which  made  them  white  as  snow ;  while 
here  and  there  the  summits  of  other  mountains  pierced 
through  this  brilliant  ocean,  appearing  like  islands  of 
green  in  the  midst  of  a  vast  sea.  Another  day,  during 
the  same  journey,  the  stage-coach  stopped  to  allow  the 
passengers  to  go  to  the  edge  of  a  wonderful  precipice, 
known  as  Hawk's  Nest.  From  this  ledge  we  looked 
down  more  than  a  thousand  feet  into  the  valley  of  the 
Kanawha  Kiver.  The  wall  of  rock  was  so  steep  that 
one  might  almost  drop  a  stone  into  the  stream. 

The  foliage  of  the  woods  in  the  Ohio  Valley  greatly 
surprised  me  by  its  burning  richness  of  color.  I  had 
never  seen  such  hues  in  New  England.  The  enor- 
mous trees  in  these  Western  forests  also  seemed  to  be- 
long to  fairyland,  and  not  to  reality.  The  majestic 
sycamores  leaning  their  vast  trunks  and  massive  limbs 
over  the  shallow  streams  which  we  often  forded,  the 
beautiful  gum  tree  carrying  up  a  tower  of  foliage  to- 
ward the  skies,  the  enormous  tulip  trees,  and  the  cotton- 
wood  with  its  leaves  always  in  motion,  were  unlike  any- 
thing with  which  I  was  familiar.  They  recalled  to  my 
memory  engravings  which  I  had  seen,  when  a  child,  in 
a  volume  belonging  to  my  aunt,  Mrs.  Swan,  who  had 
lent  it  to  me  for  my  amusement  when  I  was  recov- 
ering from  an  illness.  Among  these  were  landcapes 
by  Gaspar  Poussin,  Claude,  and  Salvator  Eosa,  which 
contained  trees  so  beautiful  and  majestic  that  I  had 
supposed  them  purely  ideal  creations.  But  now  I  saw 
before  me  thes  every  trees,  as  beautiful  as  the  finest 
creations  of  the  artists. 


56  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

In  winter  a  long  stage-coach  journey  was  not  so 
pleasant.  And  yet  sometimes  there  was  a  charm  and 
excitement  even  in  this.  One  night,  in  the  middle  of 
December,  we  crossed  the  Laurel  Mountain  in  Pennsyl- 
vania. It  was  twelve  at  night  when  we  reached  the 
summit  and  began  to  descend.  Fortunately  I  was  on 
the  outside  with  the  driver,  else  had  I  lost  one  of  the 
grandest  impressions  ever  made  on  my  mind.  A  dark 
panorama  of  mountains  circled  and  opened  around  us, 
along  the  edge  of  whose  summits  our  road  wound  like 
a  white  thread.  Beneath  us  sank  a  black,  fathomless 
gulf,  from  which  shot  up  the  stems  and  trunks  of 
gigantic  trees,  appearing  like  white  spectres  as  the  light 
from  our  carriage  lamps  fell  athwart  them.  As  our 
sure-footed  and  fleet  horses  sped  along  this  Simplon 
route  a  complex  feeling  of  being  on  the  brink  of  danger, 
yet  always  safe,  was  merged  in  a  sense  of  grandeur 
inspired  by  the  vast,  dim  amphitheatre  around,  the 
mountain  tops,  the  solitude,  the  loneliness  of  the  hour, 
and  the  rapid  movement  of  the  horses  plunging  forward 
from  the  darkness  behind  into  the  darkness  before. 

Another  night,  in  mid-winter,  we  were  crossing  the 
mountains,  with  a  long  ascent  before  us,  and  the  horses 
were  slowly  dragging  a  heavy  coach  up  a  difficult  road. 
My  feet  were  cold,  and  I  proposed  to  one  .of  my  fellow- 
travelers  to  get  out  and  walk.  Moving  briskly,  we 
soon  left  the  coach  behind.  After  walking  nearly  an 
hour,  and  hearing  nothing  of  the  stage,  we  determined 
to  wait  for  it  to  come  up.  A  very  rude  log  cabin  was 
near  the  road,  and  we  saw  the  light  of  a  fire  within  illu- 
minating the  window.  We  quietly  opened  the  door 
and  went  in.  There  was  but  one  room.  The  bed  stood 
in  one  corner ;  the  great  logs  of  hickory  or  sugar-tree 
were  smouldering  and  blazing  up  in  the  big  chimney. 
We  sat  down  to  warm  ourselves  at  the  fire,  and  talked 
with  our  unseen  host,  who  lay  in  bed  and  talked  with 
us,  asking  the  news  of  his  unexpected  guests. 


KENTUCKY.  57 

I  once  came  from  Kentucky  to  Boston  by  what  is 
called  the  Guyanclotte  route,  which  crosses  the  moun- 
tains from  western  Virginia,  following  up  the  valley 
of  the  Kanawha  Eiver,  and  passing  east  by  the  White 
Sulphur  Springs,  and  so  on  to  Fredericksburg  and  the 
Potomac.  Some  of  the  taverns  where  we  stopped  on 
this  route  were  old  Virginia  homes  kept  by  the  repre- 
sentatives of  decayed  families.  In  such  instances  the 
landlord  treated  his  guests  very  much  as  if  they  were 
friends  come  to  make  a  visit.  He  welcomed  us  at  the 
front  door  in  the  most  cordial  manner,  seated  us  around 
the  old  family  dinner-table  of  dark  mahogany,  on  which 
were  spread  all  the  luxuries  at  his  command ;  and  he 
felt  it  his  duty  to  entertain  us,  while  we  stayed,  with 
such  conversation  as  he  thought  would  interest  us. 
When  we  departed,  he  seemed  almost  ashamed  to  re- 
ceive any  payment  for  his  civilities.  A  friend  told  me 
that  when  making  a  little  journey  in  Tennessee  on 
horseback  he  took  care  to  avoid  the  village  inns  at 
nightfall,  preferring  to  pass  the  night  on  some  planta- 
tion. In  those  early  days  every  planter  or  farmer  felt 
bound  to  receive  travelers,  and  was  usually  glad  to  do 
so,  since  this  gave  him  one  of  his  few  opportunities 
of  knowing  what  was  passing  outside  of  his  own 
neighborhood.  One  evening,  about  sundown,  my  friend 
rode  up  the  avenue  of  a  house  to  the  door  where  the 
owner  was  sitting  smoking  his  pipe  on  the  stoop.  The 
traveler,  using  the  customary  formula,  said  :  "  Can  I 
get  to  stay  here  to-night  ?  "  The  planter,  taking  his 
pipe  from  his  mouth,  replied,  "Young  man,  when  I 
was  of  your  age,  and  was  traveling,  if  I  came  to  a  house 
at  sunset,  and  asked  if  I  could  get  to  stay,  and  the 
owner  said  no,  I  should  Te^lj  by  swearing  that  I  would 
stay  anyhow.  So,  'light,  young  man,  'light."  My 
friend  was  treated  very  hospitably ;  his  horse  was  taken 
care  of,  he  had  a  good  supper,  a  good  breakfast,  and  a 
comfortable  bedroom.     He  was  treated  so  like  a  friend 


58  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

that,  when  ready  to  mount  his  horse,  he  was  almost 
afraid  to  pay  for  his  entertainment,  lest  he  should  give 
offense  to  his  kind  host.  But  wishing  to  be  on  the  safe 
side  he  stammered  out  the  question,  "  How  much  am  I 
indebted,  sir,  for  my  entertainment  ?  "  The  planter 
considered,  and  answered  thus :  "  Your  supper  and 
breakfast  cost  us  nothing,  for  we  added  nothing  to  our 
usual  meal.  Your  bedroom  cost  us  nothing,  for  we  have 
servants  to  take  care  of  the  rooms  who  have  not  half 
enough  to  do.  Your  horse,  however,  ate,  I  suppose, 
about  as  much  corn  as  I  could  sell  for  a  quarter  of  a 
dollar.  So  you  may  pay  me  that  amount."  My  friend 
paid  this  minimum  sum,  and  rode  away,  admiring  the 
hospitality  of  this  unlettered  planter,  which  was  joined 
with  a  courtesy  that  would  not  leave  his  guest  under  a 
sense  of  obligation. 

I  cannot  but  believe  that  this  stage-coach  traveling 
gave  one  a  good  opportunity  of  becoming  acquainted 
with  human  character.  We  usually  see  only  those  asso- 
ciated with  us  in  our  own  circle  of  occupation  and  social 
intercourse.  Thus  we  take  a  narrow  or  one-sided  view 
of  mankind.  The  lawyer  sees  the  quarrelsome  side  of 
man ;  the  clergyman  the  religious  side.  The  physician 
sees  men  whose  minds  are  troubled  by  disease  ;  the  man 
of  business  encounters  them  in  the  sharp  conflict  of  self- 
ish competition.  But  when  we  traveled  in  the  stage- 
coach we  met  people  of  every  type,  quality,  training, 
and  occupation.  Six  or  eight  persons  riding  together 
day  after  day  necessarily  became  pretty  well  acquainted 
with  each  other.  One  saw  in  these  long  journeys  all 
sorts  of  characters  ;  people  from  every  State  in  the 
Union,  and  from  foreign  lands  ;  people  of  every  type  of 
religious  belief  or  unbelief ;  philanthropists  going  about 
doing  good,  and  border  ruffians  hungry  for  a  quarrel. 
The  result,  on  the  whole,  was  to  give  me  a  favorable 
impression  of  human  nature.  At  first,  indeed,  I  was 
often  filled  with  distaste,  not  to  say  disgust.      Some 


KENTUCKY.  69 

seemed  coarse  and  brutal ;  men  using  profane  language 
in  every  sentence,  boasting  of  their  quarrels,  drinking 
whiskey.  Others  were  full  of  conceit,  thinking  of  them- 
selves more  highly  than  they  ought  to  think.  Others 
were  garrulous,  talking  all  the  time,  and  saying  nothing. 
Others  were  morose,  stupid,  or  sullen.  Nevertheless, 
after  riding  with  them  for  a  day  or  two,  some  good  points 
would  emerge ;  the  stupid  fellow  would  be  found  to 
know  something  of  which  I  was  ignorant ;  the  talker 
would  say  something  worth  hearing ;  the  border  ruffian, 
bristling  with  bowie  knives,  would  turn  out  to  be  a 
good-natured  fellow  after  all.  I  found  that  a  good  deal 
of  this  development  would  depend  on  the  tone  taken 
at  first,  or  on  the  influence  of  some  one  person.  Once, 
when  going  through  the  Cattaraugus  woods,  where  the 
road  was  mostly  deep  mire  or  rough  corduroy,  and  there 
was  every  temptation  to  be  cross  and  uncomfortable, 
one  man  so  enlivened  and  entertained  our  party,  was  so 
accommodating  and  good-natured,  that  we  seemed  to  be 
having  a  pleasant  picnic,  and  the  other  inmates  of  the 
coach  took  the  same  tone.  I  therefore  found  it  best  for 
my  own  sake,  as  soon  as  we  took  our  places  in  the  coach 
for  a  long  journey,  to  manifest  an  interest  in  my  fellow- 
passengers  and  their  comfort ;  offering,  for  example,  to 
change  places  with  them  if  they  preferred  my  seat  to 
their  own,  and  paying  them  such  little  attentions  as  are 
always  agreeable.  It  happened  almost  always  that  the 
other  passengers  would  follow  this  lead,  and  take  pains 
to  be  civil  and  accommodating. 

Sometimes,  by  way  of  variety,  and  sometimes  from 
necessity,  we  traveled  in  canal-boats.  I  journeyed  thus 
for  a  day  and  night  in  western  New  York,  on  the  Tona- 
wanda  Canal,  with  a  party  from  Niagara  Falls.  The 
boat  was  too  full  for  comfort ;  and  when  nic^ht  came, 
and  we  had  to  arrange  for  sleeping  in  the  little  hanging 
berths  on  each  side  of  the  cabin,  there  was  a  good  deal 
of  crowding  and  discomfort.     But  some  Boston  young 


60  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

ladies  of  our  party,  instead  of  complaining,  made  light 
of  the  matter,  and  filled  the  cabin  with  their  gayety. 
An  old  judge  from  Canandaigua  occupied  the  berth  be- 
low me,  and  I  heard  him  saying  to  himself  after  he 
turned  in :  "  How  nice  and  smart  those  Boston  girls 
are !  " 

Never  shall  I  forget  that  first  visit  to  Niagara.  I  had 
been  in  Kentucky  a  year,  and  was  on  my  way  home  for 
a  summer  vacation.  I  stopped  at  Buffalo  on  Sunday 
and  preached,  and  went  to  the  Falls  the  next  morning, 
to  spend  a  day  or  two.  The  large  hotels  had  not  then 
been  built ;  the  crowds  had  not  come  ;  one  or  two  mod- 
erate-sized taverns  accommodated  all  the  visitors.  In 
the  tavern  where  I  stayed,  I  found  the  Boston  party 
of  which  I  have  just  spoken.  To  meet  such  a  party  as 
this,  on  my  first  visit  to  Niagara,  enhanced  the  pleasure 
of  that  experience.  The  majesty  of  the  Falls  was  not 
then  debased  by  a  miserable  environment  of  curiosity- 
shops,  peddlers,  and  shouting  hackmen.  The  roar  of 
the  cataract  and  the  tumult  of  the  rapids  dominated  all 
other  sounds.  At  night,  when  we  walked  on  Goat  Is- 
land, by  the  light  of  the  full  moon  which  shone  through 
the  tall  treetops,  the  whole  scene  was  picturesque  be- 
yond description.  It  seemed  to  make  an  epoch  in  one's 
life.  It  filled  and  satisfied  the  mind,  infusing  into  it 
the  calmness  which  the  mighty  Mother  Nature  sends  to 
her  children's  hearts  at  such  hours.  I  was  prepared  for 
the  sublimity  of  the  scene,  but  did  not  anticipate  such 
overpowering  beauty.  Everything  like  fear  was  swal- 
lowed up  in  this  luxury  of  color,  form,  sound,  and  move- 
ment. The  curves  and  undulations  on  the  face  of  the 
great  sheets  were  like  exquisite  arabesques  in  a  state  of 
continual  change.  One  could  sit  or  lie  upon  the  rocks 
above  the  great  British  Fall  and  look  down  without 
giddiness  into  the  awful  tumult  below.  The  water  goes 
over  in  a  solid  transparent  sheet  with  a  steady,  unhast- 
ening  movement.     It  meets  the  clouds  of  mist  rushing 


KENTUCKY.  61 

upward  from  tlie  torment  below.  From  the  surface  of 
the  fall  there  burst  forth  rockets  where  the  air,  caught 
and  compressed  by  the  descending  mass,  explodes  in 
white  foam.  The  deep  emerald  green  of  the  water  con- 
trasting with  the  snowy  mists,  and  the  rainbow  tints 
refracted  by  the  sunshine,  make  a  beauty  which  one 
lingers  over  with  no  wish  for  any  change. 

After  leaving  the  canal-boat,  and  taking  my  seat  in 
the  stage-coach  for  Eochester  and  Utica,  —  for  this  was 
long  before  the  days  of  the  New  York  Central  llailroad, 
—  I  found  a  fellow-traveler  whose  conversation  much 
interested  me.  He  had  a  great  deal  to  say,  for  his  mind 
was  full  and  his  temper  genial.  At  first,  he  talked 
about  various  eminent  persons  whom  he  had  known 
or  knew  in  the  United  States ;  and  I  discovered  that 
he  had  had  personal  intercourse  with  General  Jack- 
son, Henry  Clay,  John  C.  Calhoun,  and  other  leading 
Americans.  Afterward,  he  spoke  of  European  events  ; 
and  it  appeared  that  he  had  been  with  the  Prussian 
army  which  encountered  Napoleon  at  Waterloo,  and  had 
been  left  on  the  field  at  Ligny  desperately  wounded. 
He  was  taken  to  a  farmer's  house  and  nursed  for  weeks, 
until  he  became  well  enough  to  return  home.  Mean- 
time his  family  had  heard  nothing  of  him,  and  supposed 
him  to  be  dead.  He  reached  home  of  a  summer  after- 
noon, found  the  front  door  open,  and  went  in.  He 
heard  the  voices  of  his  mother  and  sister,  and  listened. 
They  were  talking  sadly  of  the  death  of  this  dear  son 
and  brother,  who  was  only  fifteen  years  old.  He  walked 
alive  into  the  room  where  they  were,  and  we  can 
imagine  the  scene ;  or  if  we  cannot  imagine  it  we  can 
remember  the  picture  in  the  illustrations  to  Schiller's 
"  Song  of  the  Bell,"  by  Moritz  Eetzsch,  depicting  in  two 
tableaux  the  return  of  the  son  from  his  years  of  travel. 
His  father  and  mother,  in  the  first  picture,  are  sitting 
by  their  table,  and  for  a  moment  do  not  recognize  the 
manly  stranger  who  stands  before  them.     But  in  the 


62  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

next  scene  they  have  recognized  him.  He  has  thrown 
down  on  the  floor  his  cloak  and  staff  and  knapsack, 
and  has  fallen  on  his  knees  by  his  mother's  chair.  His 
head  is  in  her  lap,  her  own  head  is  on  his  neck  and 
her  arm  round  his  shoulder,  while  the  father,  from  the 
other  side  of  the  table,  is  leaning  forward,  reaching  out 
both  hands  toward  the  dear  son.  Somewhat  like  this 
must  have  been  the  scene  in  the  little  house  in  Germany, 
when  he  who  was  supposed  to  be  dead  returned  like 
one  risen  from  the  grave.  Then  this  man  of  many  ad- 
ventures told  us  how  at  twenty-one  he  volunteered  in 
the  Greek  war  of  independence,  traveling  on  foot  with 
some  of  his  fellow-students  through  Switzerland  and 
France  to  Marseilles.  Scarcely  landed  in  Greece,  they 
were  arrested  by  orders  from  Kussia,  and  sent  back 
under  the  charge  of  an  ofhcer.  Landed  on  the  eastern 
coast  of  Italy,  they  crossed  the  peninsula,  passing  at  no 
great  distance  from  Eome.  It  seemed  impossible  for 
them  to  lose  the  opportunity  of  visiting  this  city  of 
their  dreams  ;  but  it  was  useless  for  them  to  try  to  ob- 
tain permission  from  their  guard.  So  they  made  their 
escape  when  he  was  asleep,  and  reached  Eome  without 
being  overtaken.  They  wisely  decided  to  go  immedi- 
ately to  the  Prussian  Minister,  who,  fortunately  for 
them,  was  Baron  Niebuhr.  They  told  him  what  they 
had  done,  and  asked  his  permission  to  remain  a  few 
days  in  Eome,  to  see  its  wonders.  Niebuhr  looked 
grave,  reprimanded  them  seriously  for  their  violation 
of  discipline,  and  told  them  to  come  back  in  the  even- 
ing, and  he  would  let  them  know  the  decision  he  had 
reached.  After  they  had  gone  Niebuhr  went  into  the 
parlor  and  told  his  wife  of  the  affair.  She  said :  "  Well, 
Niebuhr,  you  will  let  them  stay,  will  you  not  ?  "  "  Of 
course  I  shall,"  said  he,  "  only  I  thought  it  necessary 
to  frighten  them  a  little."  So  when  they  returned  in 
the  evening,  very  anxious  as  to  the  result,  he  took  them 
at  once  into  his  house,  and  kept  them  there  for  some 


KENTUCKY.  63 

time  as  members  of  his  family  -,  and  of  course  the  love 
and  reverence  which  my  companion  expressed  for  him 
knew  no  bounds.     Then  he  told  me  of  his  life  in  Berlin 
and  his  admiration  for  Schleiermacher,  of  whom  I  was 
glad  to  hear  something  more,  as  I  had  been  so  much 
interested   in  his   published   writings.     He   described 
how  the  great  church  in  Berlin  where  Schleiermacher 
preached  was  crowded  with  an  audience  consisting  of 
every  class  in  society,  from  high  court  officers,  students, 
and  professors  to   the  humblest  day-laborers,  —  all  of 
them  deeply  moved  by  the  mingled  depth  and  feeling 
of  his  discourse.     After  a  while  I  learned  that  my  ac- 
complished fellow-traveler  was  Dr.  Erancis  Lieber.    We 
kept  together  as  far  as  Trenton  Falls  ;  stopping  at  dif- 
ferent places  on  the  way,  in  each  of  which  he  found  the 
objects  most  deserving  of  a  visit.     I  took  lessons  from 
him  in  the  art  of  traveling.     He  showed  me  that  the 
people  who  live  in  a  place  seldom  know  in  what  its 
real  curiosities  consist,  and  that  a  careful  investigation 
is  necessary  in  order  to  find  them  out.     Thus  in  one 
place  we  went  to  see  a  weigh-lock,  where  the  canal- 
boats  were  floated  into  a  gigantic  pair  of  scales,  and  the 
water  being  drawn  off  the  weight  of  the  boat  and  cargo 
is  ascertained  within  two  or  three  pounds.     In  other 
towns  we  visited  the  institutions  for  which  each  was 
most  distinguished  ;  seeing  in  one  place  a  reformatory, 
and  in  another  flour -mills,  and   in  another  building- 
yards  for  canal-boats.     When  we  reached  Trenton  Falls 
the  water  in  Canada  Creek  was  so  high  that  the  usual 
foot-path  by  the  side  of  the  river  was  impassable,  and 
nothing  remained  for  us  but  to  clamber  along  the  edge 
of   the    rocky  precipice  as   best  we    could,  above  the 
rushing  torrent.     Dr.  Lieber  had  practiced  gymnastics 
in  Germany.     I  had  been  taught  them  by  Dr.  Follen 
at  Cambridge.     So  I  succeeded  in  following  where  he 
led  the  way  ;  finding  places  with  difficulty  into  which 
we  could  insert  our  toes  while  clinging  with  the  ends 


64  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

of  our  fingers  to  the  projections  of  rock  above.  I  did 
not  wish,  to  be  outdone ;  though  I  confess  I  was  well 
pleased  when  he  decided  that  we  could  go  no  farther  and 
must  return.  After  we  parted  I  received  some  letters 
from  this  new  friend,  one  of  which  contained  a  German 
poem  to  Niagara,  which,  like  myself,  he  had  just  seen 
for  the  first  time.  In  this  poem,  as  I  recollect,  he  ex- 
pressed the  idea  that  if  Dante  had  seen  Niagara  he 
would  have  found  new  images  there  for  his  '^Inferno." 

I  saw  Chicago  for  the  first  time  in  1840.  My  bro- 
thers, AVilliam  and  Abraham,  had  already  been  living 
there  for  some  years,  and  they  and  my  mother  occupied 
a  house  on  the  south  side  of  the  river  near  the  lake.  I 
think  it  was  upon  what  was  called  the  Eeservation, 
where  originally  the  Government  block-house  had  stood. 
Some  of  the  early  settlers  were  still  living,  such  as  Mr. 
Kinzie,  Mr.  Gurdon  Hubbard,  and  Mr.  William  B. 
Ogden.  One  of  these  gentlemen  showed  me  a  sketch 
of  Chicago  as  it  looked  when  he  first  saw  it.  It  con- 
sisted of  two  buildings,  one  on  each  side  of  the  mouth 
of  the  river:  the  block-house  on  the  south  side,  and 
the  Indian  Agency  on  the  north  side.  At  the  time 
I  first  saw  it,  in  1840,  it  was  a  town  of  7,000  or  8,000 
inhabitants;  now  (1886),  less  than  fifty  years  after, 
it  has  500,000,  and  is  still  growing  with  rapidity.  In 
1840  it  was  a  very  pleasant  place.  There  was  scarcely 
anything  on  the  north  side  of  the  river ;  but  on  the 
south  side  the  houses  were  pleasantly  situated,  with 
open  spaces,  gardens,  and  views  of  the  lake.  It  was 
a  quiet  place,  with  none  of  the  intense  activity  which 
now  prevails  there. 

The  easiest  way  of  going  to  Chicago  from  the  East 
in  those  days  was  to  traverse  the  Lakes  in  the  large 
and  well-appointed  steamers  from  Buffalo  by  Detroit, 
Lake  Huron,  and  ]\Iackinaw  into  Lake  Michigan.  The 
voyage  was  charming,  for  we  had  beautiful  views  of 
the  shores,  bays,  forests,  and  promontories  near  which 


KENTUCKY.  65 

we  passed.  "VYe  sailed  into  some  of  the  bays,  and  found 
the  water  so  transparent  that  we  could  see  the  beautiful 
agates  and  carnelians  twenty  feet  below.  At  Mackinaw 
were  curious  cliffs,  and  we  saw  Indians  in  their  tents 
waiting  to  receive  their  pensions  from  the  United 
States. 

No  Unitarian  church  edifice  then  existed  in  Chicago. 
I  preached  one  Sunday  in  a  large  room,  a  second  in  a 
Universalist  church,  and  in  the  evening  lectured  by  re- 
quest of  the  minister,  Mr.  Patterson,  in  the  First  Pres* 
byterian  Church,  on  "  The  Evils  of  Slavery." 


CHAPTER  VI. 

LIFE    IN    KENTUCKY. 

It  was  early  in  the  morning  when  the  mail-boat 
reached  the  expanse  of  water  above  Louisville.  Here 
is  the  only  place  throughout  its  whole  extent  where  the 
navigation  of  the  Ohio  Eiver  is  interrupted  by  falls, 
and  these  falls  have  built  up  the  city  of  Louisville. 
When  the  boat  stopped  at  the  landing  I  went  to  a  hotel, 
and  after  breakfast  called  at  the  office  of  the  gentle- 
man with  whom  I  had  corresponded.  This  was  Mr. 
Simeon  S.  Goodwin,  a  native  of  Plymouth,  Mass.,  who 
had  traveled  extensively,  and  had  now  been  living  in 
Louisville  many  years.  He  was  a  Yankee  of  the  Yan- 
kees, practical,  energetic,  persistent,  an  excellent  man 
of  business,  but  retaining  from  his  New  England  origin 
and  education  a  love  of  knowledge  and  an  interest  in 
all  the  old  New  England  institutions.  He  had  given 
much  time  and  labor  to  establish  public  schools  in  the 
city,  and  they  were  in  full  and  successful  operation, 
the  teachers  being  better  paid  than  in  New  England 
towns.  He  was  the  first  to  organize  an  insurance 
company,  of  which  during  many  years  he  had  been  the 
actuary  or  secretary.  Although  the  Kentuckians  re- 
cognized his  usefulness,  and  could  not  do  without  him, 
he  was  by  no  means  popular,  for  he  continually  let 
them  understand  how  inferior  they  were  in  their  ways 
to  the  people  of  New  England.  He  never  hesitated  to 
express  his  opinions  in  politics  or  religion  ;  and  on 
these  questions,  as  on  others,  he  was  apt  to  be  on  the 
unpopular  side.     In  politics  he  was  an  old-fashioned 


LIFE  IN  KENTUCKY.  67 

Federalist,  while  the  people  around  him  were  Demo- 
cratic. When  Jefferson  died,  in  1826,  and  the  people 
were  lamenting  his  loss  as  that  of  the  greatest  man  in 
the  nation,  Mr.  Goodwin  said  publicly  that  "  it  was  a 
pity  he  had  not  died  fifty  years  before."  This  remark, 
which  seemed  to  him  a  truism,  nearly  caused  him  to 
be  mobbed.  From  New  England  he  had  also  brought 
his  Unitarian  belief,  and  having  established  public 
schools,  he  next  proceeded  to  found  a  Unitarian  church. 
He  had  induced  several  Unitarian  ministers  of  the  pe- 
riod to  give  courses  of  lectures  in  Louisville,  with  the 
result  of  bringing  together  a  small  company,  consisting 
mostly  of  New  Englanders,  but  with  a  sprinkling  of 
Kentuckians  and  a  few  others  who  favored  that  doc- 
trine. One  of  the  preachers  who  made  a  great  impres- 
sion by  the  clearness  and  cogency  of  his  arguments,  and 
by  his  manly  independence  of  character,  was  Rev.  Ber- 
nard Whitman,  of  Waltham,  Mass. 

Horace  Holley,  who  had  gone  from  the  Hollis  Street 
Church,  in  Boston,  to  be  president  of  Transylvania  Uni- 
versity, in  Lexington,  Ky.,  had  also  preached  in  Louis- 
ville, during  his  occasional  visits  to  that  city  ;  and  his 
oratory  was  well  suited  to  the  taste  of  the  people.  He 
was  a  fluent  extempore  speaker,  with  rather  a  florid 
rhetoric  and  an  animated  delivery,  and  always  made  a 
great  impression.  Under  these  influences  and  by  means 
of  Mr.  Goodwin's  excellent  business  management,  a 
church  building  had  been  erected  and  fully  paid  for. 
There  had  been  one  settled  minister  before  I  went  to 
the  place.  Rev.  George  Chapman;  but  ill  health  had 
compelled  him  to  leave  at  the  end  of  the  first  year. 

I  found  Mr.  Goodwin  in  his  office,  where  he  received 
me  kindly.  He  had  engaged  a  room  for  me  in  the 
same  boarding-house  in  which  he  and  his  wife  were 
then  living.  Nothing  could  be  more  bare  and  deso- 
late than  this  room.  It  contained,  for  furniture,  a  bed, 
two  chairs,  a  table,  and  a  washstand.     The  windows 


68  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

looked  down  upon  one  of  the  noisiest  streets  of  the 
city,  whence  came  to  my  ears  the  barking  of  dogs,  the 
shouts  of  negroes,  and  sometimes  the  voice  of  an  auc- 
tioneer selling  a  horse,  which  he  rode  up  and  down,  cry- 
ing out,  "  Forty  dollars  for  the  horse  !  " 

Louisville,  which  has  since  become  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  cities  in  the  country,  was  in  those  days  one 
of  the  ugliest.  It  consisted  of  plain  brick  shops  and 
houses,  without  any  grass  plots,  and  with  hardly  a  tree. 
The  streets  were  never  cleaned,  the  rain  being  expected 
to  do  the  cleansing.  Fortunately  the  limestone  rock  on 
which  the  city  stood  was  absorbent,  and  everything  soon 
dried  up ;  so  that,  on  the  whole,  the  health  of  the  place 
w^as  good.  Accustomed  as  I  had  been  to  the  hills,  the 
green  lanes,  and  the  pleasant  shade-trees  around  Boston, 
I  found  the  flat  expanse  on  w^hich  this  city  stood  very 
tiresome,  and  the  dirt  and  ugliness  hard  to  be  borne.  A 
little  piece  of  the  native  forest,  called  Jacob's  Woods, 
had  been  left  untouched  by  the  axe,  and  to  this  I  often 
took  my  morning  and  evening  w^alk.  During  a  large 
part  of  the  year  the  falls  of  the  river  were  low,  and  the 
flat  limestone  rocks  above  them  were  bare,  and  I  took 
pleasure  in  frequently  visiting  these  rocks  and  falls. 
On  the  shipping  port  bottom-lands  below  the  falls,  there 
stood  one  solitary  majestic  sycamore,  which  measured 
forty-four  feet  in  circumference,  four  or  five  feet  from 
the  ground.  This  tree  I  often  made  a  terminus  of  my 
walk  before  breakfast.  The  middle  of  the  day,  in  the 
summer,  was  too  oppressive  and  sultry  for  walking; 
and,  as  I  did  not  wish  to  lose  my  habit  of  pedestrian 
exercise,  I  usually  took  my  walk  before  breakfast,  to 
the  great  surprise  of  the  Kentuckians,  who  could  not 
understand  why  any  one  should  walk  who  was  able  to 
ride  on  horseback,  and  they  sometimes  kindly  offered 
me  the  use  of  their  saddle-horses,  thinking  that  I 
walked  because  I  did  not  own  a  horse. 

When  any  friend  from  the  North  visited  Louisville, 


LIFE  IN  KENTUCKY.  69 

and  called  to  see  me,  I  usually  took  him  to  this  great 
sycamore  tree  as  the  chief  curiosity  of  the  region.  But 
what  was  my  horror,  one  day,  to  find  that  it  had  been  cut 
down  and  was  resting  its  mighty  length  upon  the  ground. 
On  inquiry  as  to  the  cause  of  this  destruction,  I  learned 
that  it  had  been  felled  by  a  squatter  who  lived  in  a 
cabin  some  little  distance  away,  and  who  seemed  to 
have  no  reason  for  cutting  it  down  except  the  back- 
woodsman's ingrained  hostility  to  trees.  For  in  the 
West  the  period  had  returned  spoken  of  in  the  Bible, 
*'  when  man  was  accounted  great  according  as  he  had 
lifted  his  axe  against  the  thick  trees."  But  even  as  it 
lay  on  the  ground  the  tree  was  a  wonder.  Though  it 
had  decayed  at  the  top,  and  lost  its  upper  branches,  it 
was  about  ninety  feet  long,  and  the  diameter  of  the  butt 
end  was  fourteen  feet. 

During  what  remained  of  the  first  week,  beside  call- 
ing on  a  few  of  the  people  and  writing  letters  to  my 
friends,  in  the  hope  of  getting  answers  from  them,  I 
was  trying  to  prepare  for  my  first  Sunday.  In  regard 
to  this  I  made  two  great  mistakes.  I  had  heard  that 
the  people  in  the  West  preferred  extempore  speaking, 
and  I  thought  I  must  preach  an  extempore  sermon.  As 
I  had  been  accustomed  to  speak  often  in  debate  with- 
out difficulty,  I  imagined  that  I  could  preach  without 
notes.  But  I  found  it  was  one  thing  to  answer  an 
opponent  in  debate,  and  quite  another  thing  to  address 
a  congregation.  All  the  thoughts  I  had  arranged  in  my 
mind  disappeared,  and  I  found  that  I  had  nothing  to 
say.  So  after  talking  in  a  very  desultory  way  for  fif- 
teen or  twenty  minutes,  I  brought  my  sermon  suddenly 
to  an  end.  I  knew  I  had  made  an  utter  failure,  and, 
mortified  beyond  expression,  I  left  the  house  without 
speaking  to  any  one,  and  went  back  to  my  room.  Xo 
one  in  the  society  said  anything  to  me  about  this  fail- 
ure, nor  did  I  speak  to  any  one  about  it.  Some  twenty 
years  after,  in  Greenfield,  Mass.,  I  met  a  gentleman 


70  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

who  told  me  that  he  was  in  the  Louisville  church  when 
I  preached  my  first  sermon.  "  You  heard  a  pretty  poor 
one,"  I  said.  "  That  ^s  so/'  said  he ;  "  about  as  bad  a  one 
as  ever  I  heard."  "Do  you  know  what  the  people  said 
about  it  ?  "  I  asked.  He  answered,  "  Yes  ;  after  you 
had  gone  some  of  them  stopped  and  talked  about  it. 
One  man  said,  '  We  had  better  let  him  go  back  at  once 
to  Boston,  for  he  will  never  do  anything  here.'  But  an- 
other remarked,  '  Do  not  let  us  be  in  a  hurry,  —  perhaps 
he  will  do  better  by  and  by.  I  noticed  that  there  seemed 
to  be  some  sense  in  his  prayer.'  So  they  concluded  to 
wait  awhile  before  speaking  to  you." 

After  this  experience  I  took  care  to  write  my  ser- 
mons for  Sunday  morning.  In  the  afternoon,  when 
there  were  fewer  persons  present,  I  spoke  from  a  brief, 
or  a  few  notes  on  paper.  But  my  great  and  unexpected 
difficulty  was  in  finding  something  to  say.  My  mind 
was  sufficiently  full  of  thought.  I  had  read  a  great 
many  books ;  I  had  been  deeply  interested  by  such 
writers  as  Channing,  Dewey,  Carlyle,  Lord  Bacon,  and 
the  older  English  writers ;  and  I  had  read  the  largest 
part  of  the  works  of  Goethe,  Schiller,  Tieck,  Novalis, 
and  other  German  writers.  But  nothing  of  all  this 
seemed  the  right  material  for  sermons.  Few  of  my 
congregation  were  readers,  and  the  books  which  inter- 
ested me  would  not  be  interesting  to  them.  So  I  sat 
by  my  table  half  the  day,  looking  at  the  blank  paper, 
with  my  mind  equally  blank.  A  great  weight  of  re- 
sponsibility rested  on  me.  I  felt  as  if  I  ought  to  say 
something  very  important,  but  it  would  not  come.  As 
Saadi  of  Shiraz  remarks,  I  was  trying  to  squeeze  the 
juice  from  a  dried-up  brain,  and  to  digest  the  smoke  of 
a  profitless  lamp.  There  was  an  easy  way  out  of  the 
difficulty,  if  I  had  only  thought  of  it.  I  might  have 
made  use  of  the  writings  of  Channing,  Ware,  James 
Walker,  and  other  Unitarians,  which  would  have  been 
entirely  new  to  the  people,  and  which  contained  just 


LIFE  IN  KENTUCKY.  71 

the  things  they  wished  to  hear.     I  might  have  repro- 
duced their  thoughts  in  my  own  words,  and  given  entire 
satisfaction.     But  I  was  possessed  with  the  notion  that 
I  ought  to  give  them  only  my  own  thoughts.     And, 
alas !  those  thoughts  were  very  slow  in  coming.     So  I 
was  oppressed  by  a  great  sense  of  duty  without  any 
ability  of  fulfilling  it.     As  I  sat  at  the  table,  trying  to 
write,  I  saw  through  the  window  a  man  making  chairs, 
and  I  envied  him,  because  when  he  had  made  a  chair  he 
knew  he  had  done  something,  but  I,  with  all  my  effort, 
could  not  do  anything.     Those  were  bitter  days.     I  do 
not  see  how  one  could  suffer  more  than  I  did  for  the 
first  month  or  two.     There  was  no  one  with  whom  to 
consult,  no  one  to  give  me  any  sympathy.     The  only 
peace  I  had  was  in  my  dreams  at  night.     Then  the 
weight  of  care  was  removed,  and  I  was  again  among 
my  old  companions  and  friends.     When  I  awoke  in  the 
morning  I  immediately  felt  the  pressure  of  the  burden 
coming  back  upon  me.     But  it  never  occurred  to  me 
to  give  up  or  go  away.     I  worked  doggedly  on,  until  I 
began  to  see  my  way  more  clearly.     I  was  very  home- 
sick, but  I  never  mentioned  it  in  my  letters.     I  hung 
around  the  walls  of  my  chamber  all  the  souvenirs  of 
home  and  friends  I  had  brought  with  me,  so  as  to  see 
them  when  I  looked  up,  and  be  refreshed.    Before  I  left 
Boston,  Margaret  Fuller  had  given  me   a  blank-book, 
or  album,  richly  bound  and  with  a  Bramah  lock.     On 
the  first  page  of  this  she  had  written  these  mottoes :  — 

"  Extraordinary,  generous  seeking." 

"  Be  revered 
In  thee  the  faithful  hope  that  still  looks  forward, 
And  keeps  the  life-spark  warm  of  future  action 
Beneath  the  cloak  of  patient  sufferance." 

To  this  book  I  confided  my  perplexities  and  troubles, 
and  I  encouraged  myself  by  reading  the  mottoes. 

There  was  an  important  question  which  had  to  be 


72  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

settled  before  I  could  go  mucli  further,  I  must  decide 
whether  it  should  be  my  main  object,  in  preaching,  to 
teach  and  defend  Unitarian  doctrines  as  opposed  to 
the  Orthodoxy  of  the  place  and  time,  or  to  aim  chiefly 
to  make  people  feel  the  power  of  religion  on  the  daily 
life.  In  other  words,  should  I  preach  Unitarianism  as 
doctrine,  or  as  practical  Christianity  ?  Clearly,  the 
first  course  would  be  much  the  easier,  and  at  the  same 
time  more  popular  and  apparently  successful.  It  would 
give  me  a  larger  congregation  and  build  up  the  soci- 
ety. It  was  what  most  of  the  people  wished  to  hear, 
and  this  was  the  only  place  in  which  they  could  hear 
it.  If  the  Unitarian  doctrine  was  true  and  important, 
was  it  not  my  duty  to  devote  a  large  part  of  my  preach- 
ing to  its  promulgation  ?  Why  had  the  people  built 
the  church  except  for  this  ?  Here,  in  the  midst  of  a 
peculiarly  narrow  and  bigoted  Orthodoxy,  it  seemed  as 
if  it  were  right  to  lay  stress  on  a  liberal  and  rational 
form  of  Christianity.  But  though  these  reasons  were 
strong,  they  did  not  convince  me.  I  believed  that 
every  church  should  have  for  its  first  object  the  teach- 
ing of  positive  Christianity,  bringing  comfort  to  the  sor- 
rowful, making  God  seem  near,  dwelling  on  the  duties 
of  human  life  and  the  blessed  help  that  comes  from 
divine  love.  Therefore,  I  made  this  the  main  purpose 
of  my  preaching,  and  seldom  went  out  of  my  way  to 
engage  in  controversy.  I  read  the  religious  books  of  all 
denominations,  especially  such  writers  as  Jeremy  Tay- 
lor, St.  Augustine,  Luther,  Wesley,  Kobert  Hall,  Cecil, 
Scougal,  Doddridge,  and  Jacob  Abbott.  From  the  last 
writer  I  received  much  good.  I  read  his  books,  "  The 
Young  Christian,"  "  The  Corner  Stone,"  "  The  Way  to 
do  Good,"  "The  Teacher,"  etc.  In  these  writings  I 
found  the  best  part  of  Orthodoxy,  disengaged  from  its 
dogmatism ;  and  I  also  learned  from  him  a  clear,  plain 
style  and  the  help  of  appropriate  illustrations. 

During  my  first  year  in  Kentucky  I  wrote  between 


LIFE  IN  KENTUCKY.  73 

seventy  and  eighty  sermons;  but  of  all  these  I  preached 
only  one  or  two  a  second  time.  The  others  I  dis- 
missed to  oblivion.  During  my  second  year  I  wrote 
only  fifty  or  sixty,  but  perhaps  six  or  eight  of  these 
were  worth  repeating.  I  began  to  find  better  things  to 
say.  In  talking  with  the  people  I  was  able  to  learn 
what  their  difficulties  were  and  what  they  needed  to 
hear ;  and  this  gave  me  a  part  of  my  material.  Then  I 
learned  to  look  more  deeply  into  myself  and  my  own 
experience  ;  and  I  discovered  that  as  people  are  much 
alike,  the  experience  of  others  would  vary  little  from 
my  own,  and  what  did  me  good  would  be  likely  to  help 
them.  And,  finally,  I  began  to  be  more  and  more  inter- 
ested in  the  Bible,  especially  the  ISTew  Testament.  I 
learned  how  to  study  it  more  thoroughly  and  put  to  it 
more  searching  questions.  And  with  my  own  increas- 
ing interest  the  interest  of  my  hearers  also  increased. 
I  adopted  the  plan  of  holding  evening  meetings  in  the 
houses  of  different  members  of  the  society,  for  the  free 
discussion  of  religious,  moral,  philosophical,  and  social 
questions.  These  gradually  became  interesting,  and 
w^ere  very  well  attended,  the  parlors  being  often 
crowded.  Although  there  was  not  much  reading  done 
by  the  people,  they  were  independent  thinkers,  and 
the  questions  before  us  were  thoroughly  discussed  from 
every  point  of  view  and  by  persons  of  every  shade  of 
opinion.  I  always  presided,  and  learned  a  great  deal 
about  directing  such  a  conversation  and  keeping  it  to  one 
point ;  which  knowledge  I  found  of  use  afterward  when 
holding  similar  meetings  in  the  Church  of  the  Disciples, 
in  Boston.  Of  course  there  were  persons  who  talked 
too  much  and  took  more  than  their  share  of  the  conver- 
sation. It  sometimes  became  necessary  to  see  such  per- 
sons, and  ask  them  to  restrain  themselves.  I  never 
had  any  difficulty  in  doing  this ;  nor,  I  believe,  did 
I  ever  wound  their  feelings.  One  man,  a  Scotchman, 
a  Mr.  D.,  was   particularly  fond  of   giving  to  us  his 


74  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

theory  of  religion.  It  was  pure  Antinomianisin.  "We 
are  saved,"  he  said,  "  by  faith,  and  faith  means  believ- 
ing that  Jesus  is  the  Son  of  God,  and  sent  by  Him  ;  and 
if  we  believe  this  we  shall  be  saved.''  "  Morality,"  he 
said,  "  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  No  matter  how  bad 
a  man  was,  if  he  only  believed  in  Christ  he  would  be 
saved."  None  of  us  agreed  with  him  in  this  view  ;  but 
we  were  willing  to  hear  it  expressed  now  and  then. 
This  did  not  satisfy  him ;  he  desired  to  reproduce  it  on 
all  occasions,  and  I  found  that  this  interfered  with  the 
interest  felt  in  the  meetings.  I  went  to  see  Mr.  D., 
and  frankly  told  him  that  he  took  a  great  deal  more 
than  his  share  of  the  conversation.  He  at  once  agreed 
to  reduce  the  amount  of  his  communications.  "  I  will 
tell  you,"  said  he,  "  what  I  will  do.  I  will  not  speak  at 
all  until  you  call  upon  me  for  my  opinion."  "  Oh,  well," 
I  replied,  "  that  will  do."  The  next  meeting  happened 
to  be  a  very  full  one,  and  Mr.  D.  sat  behind  me, 
where  I  did  not  see  him  till  the  end  of  the  evening. 
Looking  round  accidentally  I  caught  sight  of  him. 
Evidently  he  had  been  restraining  himself  by  a  mighty 
effort.  He  was  moving  uneasily  from  one  side  of  his 
chair  to  the  other,  with  gestures  which  seemed  to  in- 
dicate that  he  was,  like  Elihu,  inwardly  fermenting 
and  in  great  danger  of  explosion.  Then  I  said,  "  What 
is  your  opinion,  Mr.  D.,  of  this  question  ?  "  And  his 
opinion  came. 

I  was  much  interested  in  a  phase  of  belief  which  pre- 
vailed to  some  extent  among  the  intelligent  Kentuck- 
ians.  They  had  been  so  often  told  from  the  pulpit  that 
if  they  did  not  believe  every  word  in  the  Bible  they  were 
infidels,  that  many  supposed  themselves  to  be  so.  Find- 
ing, perhaps,  something  in  the  Old  Testament  inconsis- 
tent with  what  seemed  to  them  true  and  right,  they 
thought  it  necessary  to  reject  Christianity  on  this  ac- 
count. I  therefore  felt  it  my  duty  to  explain  to  them 
and  to  others  that   this  doctrine  of  literal,  infallible 


LIFE  IN  KENTUCKY.  75 

inspiration  of  the  letter  had  no  foundation,  and  that 
one  could  believe  in  Christ  without  believing  in  Jonah 
or  Joshua. 

One  day  a  Louisville  lady,  Mrs.  W.,  asked  me  to  come 
and  see  her,  and  told  me  she  had  no  faith  in  Christian- 
ity as  a  Divine  revelation,  but  felt  unhappy,  and  wished 
to  attain  this  faith  if  it  were  possible.  Her  objections 
seemed  to  her  so  formidable  that  she  thought  they 
could  not  be  answered.  Inquiring  as  to  their  nature,  I 
found  that  they  all  rested  on  the  doctrine  of  the  infalli- 
ble inspiration  of  the  whole  Bible.  She  supposed  that 
if  she  doubted  or  disbelieved  any  part,  even  of  the  Old 
Testament,  she  must  give  up  the  whole.  And  as  there 
were  many  things,  especially  in  the  Old  Testament,  that 
she  was  unable  to  accept  as  literal  verity,  she  imagined 
that  she  must  not  believe  in  Jesus  Christ.  I  convinced 
her  that  the  Old  Testament  was  no  essential  part  of  the 
Christian  belief,  however  full  it  might  be  in  many 
places  of  genuine  inspiration;  and  that  even  in  the 
New  Testament  there  were  many  things  which  it  was 
not  necessary  either  to  believe  or  to  disbelieve.  I  suc- 
ceeded in  making  her  see  that  if  we  believe  in  Jesus  as 
one  who  can  bring  us  to  God  and  be  our  true  guide  in 
religion  and  life,  this  is  enough.  If  we  find  that  his 
teaching  satisfies  the  needs  of  the  mind  and  heart,  this  is 
sufficient  reason  for  taking  him  as  our  friend  and  mas- 
ter. AVhen  she  reached  this  conclusion  she  desired  to 
be  baptized  and  to  join  our  church,  which  was  accord- 
ingly done.  But  this  was  not  the  end  of  her  experience. 
Some  time  after,  I  was  called  up  in  the  middle  of  the 
night  by  her  husband,  who  wished  me  to  come  immedi- 
ately and  see  his  wife,  who  was  in  great  distress.  Her 
child  had  died,  and  she  was  inconsolable.  All  I  could 
say  to  her  seemed  to  have  no  effect  upon  her  mind. 
But  the  next  day,  when  I  called  again,  I  found  her  tran- 
quil and  submissive.  She  then  said,  ''  I  can  understand 
now  why  my  child  is  taken.    When  I  first  sent  for  you, 


76  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

desiring  to  become  a  Christian,  I  had  a  secret  feeling 
that  it  was  sinful  not  to  believe,  and  that  I  should  be 
punished  for  my  unbelief.  And  as  I  could  conceive  of 
no  more  severe  punishment  than  the  loss  of  my  child  I 
feared  that  he  might  be  taken  away,  but  hoped  that  if 
I  became  a  Christian  God  would  spare  his  life.  I  see 
now  that  my  motives  were  wrong,  and  that  instead  of 
accepting  the  will  of  God  I  was  trying  to  make  a  bar- 
gain with  Him.  But  I  now  believe  that  I  can  sincerely 
accept  his  will  as  wiser  and  better  than  my  own." 

Not  a  great  while  after  this,  Mrs.  W.  was  attacked 
with  pulmonary  disease,  and  was  advised  by  her  phy- 
sician to  go  to  New  Orleans.  Before  going  she  had  a 
meeting  in  her  room  of  some  of  the  members  of  the 
church,  and  together  we  partook  of  the  Lord's  Sup- 
per. She  bade  us  good-bye  with  much  tenderness,  not 
expecting  to  see  us  again.  At  New  Orleans  she  was 
visited  by  her  cousin,  Eev.  John  Breckenridge,  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church,  a  brother  of  the  great  preacher, 
Eobert  J.  Breckenridge,  and  himself  a  minister  of 
ability.  When  he  found  that  Mrs.  W.  was  a  Unita- 
rian he  was  much  shocked,  and  began  to  argue  with 
her  on  the  subject.  But  she  replied,  "Cousin  John, 
I  formed  my  opinions  when  I  was  well  and  my  mind 
strong.  I  do  not  intend  to  reconsider  them  now  when 
my  mind  is  weak.  If  you  will  try  to  strengthen  my 
faith  I  shall  be  glad  to  see  you ;  but  if  you  wish  to  dis- 
turb it,  I  should  prefer  that  you  should  not  come."  He 
then  asked  her  to  tell  him  what  she  believed,  and  on 
hearing  it  admitted  that  it  was  enough.  She  was  sur- 
rounded by  Presbyterians,  but  was  so  serene,  and  spoke 
so  tranquilly  of  her  approaching  death,  with  entire 
faith  in  God  and  immortality,  that  it  produced  a  great 
impression  on  those  who  saw  her. 

One  day  I  noticed  in  church  a  gentleman  whom  I 
had  not  seen  there  before,  whose  arm  hung  over  the 
pew-door,  holding  in  his   hand   a  riding-whip.     After 


LIFE  IN  KENTUCKY,  17 

church  I  inquired  who  he  was,  and  learned  that  he  was 
Judge  Speed,  a  gentleman  who  had  a  farm  a  few  miles 
out  of  the  city.  I  was  informed  that  people  called  him 
an  infidel,  but  that  he  was  universally  respected,  and 
was  a  very  good  man.  Afterward  I  became  very  inti- 
mate with  him  and  with  his  family.  He  was  like  a 
father  to  me,  and  his  house  was  like  my  own  home.  He 
had  a  large  farm  about  six  miles  out  of  town  on  the  road 
to  Bardstown.  One  field  of  this  farm  contained  eighty 
acres,  and  hemp  was  raised  in  it  every  year,  and  grew 
ten  or  twelve  feet  high.  Hemp  is  an  exhausting  crop, 
but  the  field  had  produced  it  for  a  great  many  years 
without  any  fertilizer  being  used,  the  land  being  among 
the  richest  in  Kentucky.  Walking  across  this  field  one 
day,  I  found  a  smooth  stone  about  six  inches  long.  It 
looked  like  an  Indian  axe,  but  I  left  it  where  I  found 
it,  and  when  I  reached  the  house  spoke  about  it  to 
Judge  Speed.  He  asked  me  where  I  had  found  it,  and 
on  my  reply  said,  ''No,  that  is  not  an  Indian  stone;  I 
know  the  stone  you  mean."  He  seemed  to  be  ac- 
quainted with  every  stone  in  this  eighty-acre  field. 

Judge  Speed  explained  to  me  why  he  was  called  an 
infidel.  He  said,  "  When  I  was  a  boy,  and  went  to 
meeting,  the  minister  took  the  Bible  in  his  hand,  and 
said,  '  Eveiy  word  within  these  lids  is  the  word  of  God, 
and  if  you  do  not  believe  it,  you  will  be  damned  as  sure 
as  I  kill  that  fly,'  slapping  his  hand  on  a  fly  on  the 
Bible.  I  was  an  infidel  to  this  kind  of  religion,  and 
thought  it  my  duty  to  protest  against  it.  But  I  have 
no  hostility  to  the  kind  of  religion  which  you  and  many 
others  now  preach.  I  go  from  one  church  to  another 
and  watch  you  all,  and  see  that  all  the  churches  are 
making  progress.'^ 

Several  of  Judge  Speed's  children  became  members 
of  our  society,  and  all  of  them  were  like  brotliers  and 
sisters  to  me.  One  of  his  sons,  Joshua,  kept  a  store  at 
one  time  in  Springfield,  Illinois,  and  there  became  the 


78  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

intimate  friend  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  —  the  most  inti- 
mate friend,  in  fact,  the  President  ever  had.  Lincoln 
visited  Farmington,  the  Speed  place,  some  time  after  I 
left  Kentucky.  Many  years  later,  when  I  was  revisit- 
ing Kentucky,  I  spent  a  day  with  Joshua  Speed,  who 
told  me  many  interesting  and  characteristic  anecdotes 
of  his  friend. 

Although  Judge  Speed  had  few  opportunities  for 
education,  and  had  spent  his  life  in  Kentucky  as  a 
farmer,  up  early  and  late,  riding  over  his  plantation, 
superintending  seventy  negroes,  and  educating  twelve 
children,  I  possess  some  letters  from  him  which  would 
be  creditable  to  the  most  finished  scholar.  His  mind 
was  active,  vigorous,  and  free,  ever  open  to  new  truths. 
He  thought  and  read  with  the  ardor  of  a  young  student, 
laying  aside  old  opinions,  and  accepting  better  ones 
when  he  found  them.  His  heart  was  as  fresh  as  his 
mind,  throbbing  tenderly  as  that  of  a  woman  in  answer 
to  a  kind  word.  He  was  a  true  and  faithful  friend,  a 
wise  and  kind  father.  When  he  lost  his  youngest  child, 
his  little  daughter  Anne,  he  mourned  over  her  as  one 
who  had  fully  s^anpathized  with  her  young  thoughts  and 
desires.  He  was  called  "  Judge  "  because  he  had  been 
appointed  associate  judge  in  one  of  the  court  districts. 
The  associate  judges  were  men,  usually  without  legal 
training,  who  were  put  by  the  side  of  the  chief  judge 
in  order  to  temper  his  decisions  with  practical  common 
sense. 

Judge  Speed  was  a  slaveholder.  But  he  did  not  be- 
lieve in  slavery.  He  thought  it  wrong  in  itself  and 
injurious  to  the  State,  and  expected,  like  most  intelli- 
gent Kentuckians  at  that  time,  that  Kentucky  would 
before  long  emancipate  its  slaves.  Meantime  he  held 
them  as  a  trust,  and  did  everything  he  could  to  make 
them  comfortable.  If  one  of  his  slaves  was  discon- 
tented and  ran  away,  —  which  rarely  happened,  —  he 
did  not  try  to  bring  him  back.     A  young  man  from  the 


LIFE  IN  KENTUCKY.  79 

North  once  said  to  him  :  "  Your  slaves  seem  to  be  very 
happy,  sir.''  He  replied,  "  I  try  to  make  them  com- 
fortable ;  but  I  do  not  think  that  a  slave  can  be  happy. 
God  Almighty  never  meant  a  man  to  be  a  slave  ;  and 
you  cannot  make  a  slave  happy." 

After  his  death,  his  children,  who  had  been  educated 
to  the  same  views,  finding  that  Kentucky  refused  to 
abolish  slavery,  set  free  the  slaves  whom  they  had  in- 
herited, and  gave  them  farms  in  Indiana. 

Judge  Speed  was  a  good  representative  of  a  certain 
type  of  Kentuckians,  —  strong-minded,  independent, 
energetic  men.  They  were  frank  and  open,  very  much 
interested  in  political  questions  and  public  affairs. 
They  did  not  read  much ;  but  they  talked  Avith  each 
other  a  great  deal.  Every  summer  there  were  held 
throughout  the  State  what  were  called  political  barbe- 
cues, where  leading  speakers  discussed  with  each  other 
the  public  questions  of  the  day.  Candidates  for  Con- 
gress or  the  Legislature  defended  their  public  acts  and 
opinions  ;  and  the  representatives  of  each  of  the  great 
parties  were  heard  by  the  people  in  turn.  The  conse- 
quence was  a  much  better  and  broader  knowledge  of 
public  affairs  than  is  usual  in  the  Northern  States, 
where  each  man  obtains  his  knowledge  of  politics  from 
his  own  party  newspaper. 

This  system  also  produced  excellent  speakers.  AVhat 
was  called  stump-sx^eaking  was  simply  addressing  an 
audience  of  both  parties  and  of  all  shades  of  political 
opinion,  collected  in  the  fields  or  woods,  and  spending 
the  larger  part  of  a  summer  day  in  listening  to  such 
debates.  On  these  occasions  it  was  customary  to  have 
for  dinner  an  ox,  baked  in  the  following  way.  A  hole 
was  dug  in  the  ground,  and  a  wood  fire  built  in  it ; 
when  the  wood  was  reduced  to  coal  and  ashes,  the 
meat  was  put  in  whole,  covered  up,  and  left  till  thor- 
oughly cooked,  and  then  eaten  with  other  provisions,  as 
at  a  picnic. 


80  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

Each  speaker  was  obliged,  as  in  a  tournament,  to 
maintain  his  opinions  against  all  comers.  This  devel- 
oped quickness  of  thought  and  readiness  of  speech, 
and  made  the  best  extempore  speakers  in  the  country. 
They  united  with  fluency  caution  and  precision,  and 
knew  exactly  what  to  say  and  how  to  say  it,  so  as  to 
anticipate  objections  and  conciliate  opponents.  One  of 
the  best  of  these  speakers  was  said  to  have  been  the 
famous  Joseph  Hamilton  Daviess.  I  have  heard  old 
men,  who  remembered  him,  rank  him  above  Henry 
Clay  as  a  stump  speaker,  though  Clay  was  regarded  as 
a  great  master  in  this  kind  of  oratory.  One  of  Clay's 
feats  as  a  speaker  was  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  of 
1812.  He  was  candidate  for  Congress,  and  his  district 
was  opposed  to  the  war,  having  lost  many  of  its  best 
sons  in  previous  struggles  with  the  Indians.  Mr.  Clay's 
opponent  had  made  good  use  of  this  state  of  feeling, 
and  had  attempted  to  show  that  the  war  was  unneces- 
sary and  in  every  way  undesirable.  When  Clay  rose  to 
speak,  the  feeling  of  opposition  to  him  and  his  cause 
was  at  its  height.  He  did  not  attempt  to  oppose  it,  but 
fell  in  with  the  current,  speaking  with  much  feeling  of 
the  evils  of  war,  and  expressing  warm  sympathy  with 
those  who  had  lost  sons  and  brothers  in  Indian  cam- 
paigns. Having  thus  obtained  full  possession  of  the 
minds  of  the  people,  he  said,  "  But  are  we  not  willing 
to  bear  all  this  for  the  sake  of  our  country  ?  "  and 
appealed  so  powerfully  to  their  patriotic  feelings  as  to 
win  them  over  to  his  own  views. 


DIARY   AND   CORRESPONDENCE. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


[The  Autobiography  with  which  this  book  opens  was  begun  by  Kr. 
Clarke  in  the  year  1883.  It  carries  the  story  of  his  life  nearly  to  the 
year  1840.  He  never  re\dsed  these  chapters  ;  and  there  are  some 
gaps  in  them  which  he  probably  would  have  filled.  It  is  to  assist  the 
reader  that  we  tie  together  a  few  other  notes  of  the  same  time,  taken 
from  other  sources.] 

James  Freeman  Clarke  was  born  in  Hanover,  New 
Hampshire,  on  the  fourth  of  April,  1810.  His  father, 
Samuel  Clarke,  was  living  there  for  a  time  in  order  to 
study  medicine  under  Dr.  Nathan  Smith,  who  was  con- 
nected with  Dartmouth  College.  When  James  was  a 
few  weeks  old,  Mr.  Clarke  brought  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren to  Newton,  where  he  left  them  with  his  mother, 
Mrs.  Freeman,  while  he  went  back  to  Hanover  to  finish 
his  course  of  study.  Before  the  end  of  the  year  he  had 
taken  his  degree  as  doctor  of  medicine,  and  returned  to 
Massachusetts,  where  he  entered  upon  the  practice  of 
his  profession.  They  lived  first  in  that  part  of  Newton 
now  called  Newtonville,  with  Kev.  James  Freeman, 
well  known  to  every  one  then  in  Boston,  as  the  minis- 
ter of  King's  Chapel. 

This  chapel,  as  its  name  implies,  had  been  founded 
by  and  for  the  crown  officers  in  Boston,  at  the  time 
when  Andros  was  the  royal  governor.  It  continued  as 
the  "  King's  Chapel "  till  the  last  royal  governor  left 


82  DIAEY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

Boston,  in  1776.  In  1782  the  proprietors  asked  James 
Freeman  to  be  their  reader,  chose  him  pastor  in  1783, 
and  in  1787  ordained  him  without  the  help  of  a  bishop, 
there  being,  in  fact,  no  bishop  who  coukl  have  helped 
them.  Mr.  Freeman  and  they,  alike,  understood  that  he 
and  they  were  not  to  be  bound  by  the  articles  and  creeds 
of  the  English  Church  j  and  thus  it  happened  that  the 
King's  Chapel,  after  the  king  ceased  to  reign  in  Amer- 
ica, became  the  first  Unitarian  church,  known  under 
that  name,  in  America.  It  seems  Avorth  while  to  say 
this,  in  beginning  the  life  of  the  grandson  of  James 
Freeman,  as  that  grandson  was  to  become  a  preacher 
and  leader  widely  known  in  the  Unitarian  communion 
of  this  country. 

In  1810,  Dr.  Freeman  lived,  for  the  greater  part  of 
the  year,  in  Newton,  from  which  place  it  was  neces- 
sary to  drive  to  Boston,  six  or  seven  miles  away,  for 
the  discharge  of  his  duties  there.  To  his  house  in 
Newton,  Dr.  Samuel  Clarke,  who  was  the  son  of  Mrs. 
Freeman  by  her  first  marriage,  brought  his  wife  and 
children  on  their  return  from  Hanover ;  and  there  they 
remained  for  the  rest  of  that  year.  Dr.  Clarke  then 
removed  to  another  house  in  the  neighborhood.  But 
Dr.  Freeman  was  fond  of  his  godson  James,  and  al- 
ways wished  to  have  him  as  an  inmate  of  his  own 
family.  So  that  it  was  in  Dr.  Freeman's  house  and 
under  his  immediate  care  that  James  Freeman  Clarke 
spent  most  of  his  boyhood.  "  Dr.  Freeman  was  always 
looked  upon  by  the  children  of  his  stepson,  Samuel 
Clarke,  in  the  light  of  a  grandfather,  and  his  affection 
and  kindness  were  as  great  as  if  they  were  his  nearest 
blood  relatives."  ^ 

The  tAvo  houses  were  near  each  other,  so  that  the 
children  were  not  much  separated  by  the  arrangement 
which  provided  for  James  a  home  with  Dr.  Freeman. 

Another  grandfather  and  grandmother.  General  Wil- 

^  From  a  letter  of  Samuel  C.  Clarke,  J.  F.  C.'s  older  brother. 


MR.  CLARKE'S  EARLY  YEARS.  83 

Ham  Hull  and  his  wife,  lived  about  a  mile  and  a  half 
from  Dr.  Freeman.  The  autobiography  gives  an  inter- 
esting account  of  the  boy's  relations  with  them.  Gen- 
eral Hull  is  but  little  remembered  now,  except  in  con- 
nection with  the  surrender  of  Detroit  to  the  English  iu 
the  year  1812,  and  the  charge  of  treason  on  which  he 
was  then  tried,  at  the  instance  of  the  weak  and  incom- 
petent administration  of  this  country,  which  tried  to 
make  him  its  scapegoat.  It  is  only  necessary  here  to 
say  that  General  Hull  did  not  lose  the  regard  and  re- 
spect of  his  neighbors  and  fellow-citizens. 

Mr.  Clarke's  autobiography  dwells  so  pleasantly  on 
Dr.  Freeman's  ways  of  teaching  his  grandson  that  there 
is  no  need  of  saying  more  of  them.  But  there  was  no 
subject  on  which,  in  after  life,  Mr.  Clarke  loved  more 
to  talk  than  the  skill  with  which  he  had  been  lured  by 
his  grandfather  to  learn  Latin  without  being  aware  of 
it.  He  is  one  more  instance  in  that  distinguished  list 
of  happy  children  who  have  been  so  fortunate  as  to  be 
well  educated  before  they  went  to  school,  or,  like  Stu- 
art Mill,  without  going  to  school  at  all. 

He  speaks  of  the  Boston  Latin  School,  in  the  Autobi- 
ography, with  the  pride  and  regard  with  which  almost 
all  the  graduates  look  back  to  it.  He  was  at  the  school 
at  a  distinguished  period  of  its  history.  After  a  long 
decline,  greatly  regretted  by  the  best  citizens,  it  had 
been  placed  under  the  charge  of  Benjamin  Apthorp 
Gould,  a  young  man,  an  elegant  classical  scholar,  and  a 
master  of  discipline.  The  attendance  at  the  school, 
which  had  been  very  small,  soon  became  large,  and  it 
was  without  rival  in  Boston.  Scholars  were  sent  to  it 
from  a  great  distance,  to  be  admitted  on  special  terms 
and  as  a  favor.  On  a  catalogue  of  the  school  at  that 
time,  which  Mr.  Clarke  kept  and  prized  as  having  once 
belonged  to  Charles  Sumner,  there  are  the  names  of 
many  persons  still  remembered  for  public  services. 
Among   them   are  Epes  S.   Dixwell,   George    Stillman 


/ 


84  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

Hillard,  Eobert  Charles  Winthrop,  Charles  Sumner,  and 
Wendell  Phillips.  Ealph  Waldo  Emerson  and  William 
Henry  Furness,  from  the  same  school,  had  entered  col- 
lege in  1817.  A  letter  from  Mr.  Samuel  C.  Clarke  pre- 
serves the  memory  of  a  contribution  which  the  school- 
boys made  for  Bunker  Hill  Monument,  when  the  enter- 
prise of  building  it  was  begun.  It  seems  that  James 
Freeman  Clarke  wrote  a  poem,  which  was  delivered 
with  the  boys'  offering.     It  ended  with  these  lines  :  — 

"  We  too,  though  children,  our  small  hoon  may  give, 
We  too  may  bid  our  fathers'  glory  live ; 
And  we  the  childish  toy  will  throw  aside, 
And  bring  our  stone,  to  swell  the  column's  pride." 

During  all  this  period,  his  life  was,  of  course,  mostly 
spent  in  Boston.  His  father  and  mother  had  removed 
to  Dr.  Freeman's  Boston  house,  in  Vine  Street.  Vine 
Street,  now  shut  up  a  good  deal  by  what  are  called 
the  improvements  of  modern  times,  and  crowded  with 
such  a  population  as  comes  in  when  the  separate  rooms 
of  houses  are  let  to  separate  tenants,  was  then  a  new 
street,  pretty,  airy,  and  near  the  water.  The  pilgrim 
must  not  judge  of  its  aspect  then  by  what  he  sees  to- 
day. 

Young  Clarke  entered  Harvard  College  in  1825,  in  a 
class  to  which  Dr.  Holmes  has  given  celebrity  by  the 
charming  poems  which  he  has  read  at  its  frequent 
meetings.  Mr.  Clarke's  own  study  of  his  college  life 
in  the  Autobiography  is  very  interesting  and  valuable. 
Of  his  part  in  it,  more  than  one  of  his  classmates  have 
given  accounts  which  show  how  far,  in  the  boy  of  six- 
teen and  seventeen,  the  man  could  be  discerned.  It  is 
interesting  to  observe  that  Mr.  Emerson  had  returned 
to  Cambridge  in  the  same  year,  and  in  1826  Avas  keep- 
ing a  school  in  the  Hedge  house  on  Winthrop  Square. 
He  lived  in  Divinity  Hall  at  Cambridge  until  1829,  so 
that  he  and  Mr.  Clarke  must  have  met  each  other  once 


MR.   CLARKE'S  EARLY  YEARS.  85 

and  again  in  those  days.  I  think,  however,  that  they 
did  not  form  a  personal  acquaintance  until  1832.  In 
that  year,  in  a  MS.  "  Journal  of  the  Understanding " 
is  this  note  :  "  Thursday,  December  5.  Patterson  carried 
me  to  see  Mr.  Emerson.  Had  a  conversation  on  Goethe, 
German  Literature,  Carlyle,  etc." 

Mr.  Clarke's  own  account  of  his  college  life  is  so 
full  that  I  refrain  from  adding  many  of  the  interesting 
reminiscences  which  his  classmates  have  given  me.  It 
is  clear  that  he  was  a  favorite,  —  but  I  should  say  that 
they  did  not  anticipate  his  career  as  a  leader  of  opinion. 
His  personal  courage,  his  skill  as  a  gymnast,  and  his 
friendly  good  nature,  were  all  noted  then,  and  charac- 
terize the  anecdotes  told  of  him.  More  than  one  class- 
mate still  speaks  of  his  terror  when  he  saw  Clarke 
standing  on  the  top  of  the  tall  mast,  which  he  describes, 
upon  the  Delta.  There  was  an  occasion  when  an  ef- 
figy which  hung  from  one  window  of  Hollis  was  on  the 
edge  of  capture  by  a  "  parietal  officer,"  when  "  James  " 
appeared  from  the  entry  of  Stoughton  Hall,  cut  down 
the  offending  image  just  in  time,  and  retired  to  safe 
seclusion. 

Of  his  literary  work  he  speaks  almost  contemptu- 
ously. A  Bowdoin  prize  dissertation  is  preserved  in 
the  original  manuscript.  The  subject  is,  "  How  far 
political  ignorance  in  the  people  is  to  be  depended  upon 
for  the  security  of  absolute  governments  in  Europe." 
It  will  be  remembered  that  these  were  the  palmy  days 
of  the  Holy  Alliance,  and  that  news  of  Neapolitan  and 
Greek  insurrections  was  in  the  air.  The  essay  is  the 
essay  of  a  boy ;  but  it  is  the  essay  of  a  boy  who  had 
grown  up  with  James  Freeman,  and  had  read  or  heard 
Dr.  Channing.     Early  in  the  paper  is  this  passage  :  — 

"  The  man  of  information  searches  not  after  liberty 
because  he  sees  the  inhabitants  of  a  country  robbed  of 
a  few  pieces  of  money,  or  trampled  upon  by  the  horses' 
hoofs  of  an  insolent  nobility,  or  fathers  torn  from  their 


/ 


86  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

families  to  fight  a  tyrant's  battles  while  their  wives 
and  children  sit  starving  at  home.  These  evils  will 
excite  a  glow  of  indignation  on  the  cheek  of  any  gener- 
ous man,  but  they  may  be  remedied  by  a  kind  despot, 
and  the  sudden  resentment  will  pass  away.  It  is  not 
individual  suffering  that  causes,  in  a  man  of  enlarged 
views,  his  hatred  of  tyranny.  It  is  not  the  dead  body 
of  a  Lucretia  that  kindles  his  patriotism.  It  is  the 
suffering  nature  of  man,  —  it  is  because  he  sees  the  be- 
ing intended  by  heaven  for  improvement  in  mind  and 
far  reaches  of  soul,  bound  down  and  prevented  from 
taking  its  glorious  flights,  in  order  that  five  or  six  de- 
scendants of  kings  may  sit  on  their  thrones,  and  stupefy 
their  spirits  in  debauchery,  or  play  with  the  happiness 
of  beings  mostly  superior  to  themselves  in  all  things 
truly  worthy  of  the  nature  of  men." 

The  words  are  the  words  of  a  boy,  but  of  a  boy  who 
is  the  father  of  the  man. 

His  judicial  temperament,  which  we  shall  have  many 
occasions  to  observe,  which  led  him  always  to  study 
both  sides  of  a  question  with  equal  candor,  was  ob- 
served even  then.  A  fellow-student,  who  was  among 
the  near  friends  of  his  later  life,  says  that  when  he 
first  knew  Clarke  he  thought  him  "  double-faced,"  be- 
cause he  noticed  only  the  eagerness  with  which  he  ex- 
amined all  parts  in  a  controversy. 

Emerson,  as  has  been  said,  was  living  in  Divinity 
Hall,  and  Clarke,  before  leaving  it,  had  made  the  friend- 
ship, among  many  others,  of  F.  H.  Hedge,  H.  W.  Bel- 
lows, and  W.  G.  Eliot.  With  William  Henry  Channing 
he  had  been  intimate  from  his  Latin  School  days.  They 
sat  there  side  by  side. 

This  will  be  a  proper  place  to  speak  of  a  certain 
enthusiastic  expectation  which  at  that  time  quickened 
the  lives  of  all  young  people  in  New  England  who  had 
been  trained  in  the  freer  schools  of  religion.  The  group 
of  leaders  who  surrounded  Dr.  Channing  had,  with  him, 


MR.   CLARKE'S  EARLY  YEARS.  87 

broken  forever  from  the  fetters  of  Calvinistic  theology. 
These  young  people  were  trained  to  know  that  human 
nature  is  not  totally  depraved.  They  were  taught  that 
there  is  nothing  of  which  it  is  not  capable.  From  Dr. 
Channing  down,  every  writer  and  preacher  believed 
in  the  infinite  power  of  education.  In  England  the 
popular  wave  for  the  diffusion  of  useful  knowledge  had 
set  in ;  and  what  was  called  "  the  March  of  Intellect  " 
had  begun.  The  great  German  authors  swayed  the 
minds  of  our  young  students  with  all  their  new  power, 
and  with  the  special  seduction  which  accompanies  a 
discovery,  the  study  of  German  being  wholly  new.^  For 
students  who  did  not  read  German,  Coleridge  was  open- 
ing up  the  larger  philosophy.  The  organization  of 
societies  for  philanthropic  purposes  was  comparatively 
new.  It  promised  more  than  it  has  ever  performed, 
and  even  sensible  people  then  supposed  that  when  a 
hundred  men  gave  each  a  hundredth  part  of  himself  to 
an  enterprise,  that  enterprise  had  received  an  alliance 
stronger  than  one  devoted  man  could  bring  alone. 

For  such  reasons,  and  many  more,  the  young  Xew 
Englanders  of  liberal  training  rushed  into  life,  certain 
that  the  next  half  century  was  to  see  a  complete  moral 
revolution  in  the  world.  There  was  no  "  indifferentism  '^ 
witli  them.  They  were  not  quite  sure  what  they  were 
to  do  about  it,  but  they  knew  that  something  was  to  be 
done.  And  no  one  rightly  writes  or  reads  the  life  of 
one  of  these  young  men  or  women,  unless  he  fully  ap- 
preciates the  force  of  this  enthusiastic  hope. 

'  Or  almost  wholly  new.  Dr.  Bentley,  of  Salem,  read  the  German 
rationalistic  authors,  and  had  a  larg-e  library  of  such  literature,  as 
early  as  the  beginning  of  the  century.  But  the  remark  in  the  text 
may  still  stand.  In  1833  it  would  have  been  difficult  to  buy  any  Ger- 
man book  in  Boston  excepting  Goethe  and  Schiller.  As  late  as  1843  I 
rummaged  the  Philadelphia  book-stores  for  German  books,  supposing 
that  the  large  German  population  of  Pennsylvania  might  have  led  to 
their  importation.  I  could  buy  hardly  any  German  books  in  Boston, 
and  all  the  Philadelphia  shops  offered  were  Goethe,  Schiller,  the 
Bible  and  the  P.salm-book. 


88  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

At  the  Cambridge  Divinity  School,  it  must  be  con- 
fessed, these  young  enthusiasts  were  then  kept  in  pretty 
close  harness.  But  they  respected  their  wardens,  as 
well  they  might.  Professor  Andrews  Norton  conducted 
the  criticism  of  the  New  Testament.  To  a  certain  de- 
gree, he  was  indifferent  to  Hebrew  and  the  criticism  of 
the  Old  Testament.  But  he  gave  signal  vivacity  to  the 
study  of  the  four  Gospels,  and  the  men  of  that  time 
always  went  back  eagerly  to  describe  their  surprise 
when  they  found  they  might  study  the  life  of  Jesus 
with  such  realistic  criticism  as  they  would  have  brought 
to  the  history  of  the  American  Kevolution.  The  senior 
Henry  Ware  was  thoroughly  read  in  what  was  then 
called  "  divinity."  By  this  was  meant,  I  suppose,  the 
theories  which  eighteen  centuries  of  scholarly  men  had 
wrought  out  about  the  nature  of  God,  the  nature  of 
man,  and  the  relations  between  God  and  man. 

These  gentlemen  made  the  eager  students  whom  they 
had  in  hand  study  Hebrew  and  Greek,  and  read  criti- 
cally every  word  of  both  Testaments.  They  taught 
them  what  they  believed,  that  if  they  could  find  out 
from  the  four  Gospels  what  Jesus  Christ  wanted  done 
to-day,  they  had  an  all-sufficient  answer  for  every  ques- 
tion of  to-day.  They  also  believed  that  it  was  possible 
to  learn  just  what  the  Saviour  did  wish  for  every  con- 
tingency of  to-day.  John  Winthrop  and  John  Cotton 
were  not  more  sure  that  the  details  of  Mosaic  legisla.- 
tion  could  be  applied  in  New  England  townships,  than 
were  the  teachers  under  whom  Clarke  studied  that 
there  was  in  the  four  Gospels  the  detailed  direction 
for  the  exchange,  the  market,  and  the  factory  in  the 
year  1830.  I  mean  to  say  that  they  cried,  "  To  the 
Law  and  the  Testimony,"  quite  as  earnestly  as  Win- 
throp and  Cotton  did,  though  the  "  Law  and  the  Testi- 
mony" were  to  be  found  chiefly  in  the  four  Gospels. 
If  you  had  asked  whether  you  were  not  to  go  to  God 
in  personal  prayer  for  a  personal   answer  in  to-day^s 


MB.  CLARKE'S  EARLY  YEARS.  89 

difficulty,  they  would  have  said,  "Yes."  But  I  think 
that  in  the  lessons  of  the  class-room,  they  would  have 
been  apt  to  tell  you  to  study  your  New  Testament  care- 
fully, and  to  seek  in  the  instruction  of  Jesus  Christ  the 
answer  to  all  inquiries. 

Of  course,  however,  it  was  impossible  to  teach  men 
to  rely  on  their  own  reason  in  deciding  between  two 
meanings  of  a  Greek  word,  and  not  to  teach  them  at 
the  same  time  that  their  own  reason  would  tell  them 
what  was  right  and  what  was  wrong.  Indeed,  the  mo- 
ment these  young  persons  learned  from  the  Saviour 
that  they  were  themselves  sons  of  God,  they  took  him 
at  his  word,  and  began  to  go  to  headquarters  for  direct 
instructions.  In  this  habit,  they  were  encouraged  by 
the  dominant  influence  of  the  younger  Henry  Ware, 
one  of  the  most  devout  of  men.  In  the  year  1830,  the 
younger  Henry  Ware  came  to  the  school  from  the  Sec- 
ond Church  in  Boston,  where  he  had  preceded  Kalph 
Waldo  Emerson.  He  was  a  man  of  rare  religious  ge- 
nius, passionately  interested  in  what  he  would  have 
called  the  "  saving  of  souls,"  aggressive  as  any  fanatic 
revivalist  in  his  Christian  enthusiasm,  and  at  the  same 
time,  by  conviction  and  on  the  authority  of  Scripture,  an 
out-and-out  Unitarian.  He  put  into  the  hands  of  the  di- 
vinity students  the  books  of  the  church  mystics,  and  the 
biographies  of  Brainerd  and  other  missionaries.  While 
he  quickened  them  in  evangelistic  zeal,  he  led  them 
into  close  personal  communion  with  God,  and  into  a 
sense  of  the  power  of  the  Spirit.  The  "  immanence  of 
God  "  has  become  a  theological  phrase  since  that  time. 
It  is  clear  enough,  as  one  reads  the  biographies,  which 
begin  to  appear,  of  the  men  who  were  at  work  in  that 
Cambridge  school  of  criticism,  that  criticism  itself  was 
bringing  them  all  to  that  personal  sense  of  the  Real 
Presence  which  has  dominated  the  Unitarian  movement 
of  America  for  the  last  half  century.  These  young 
men   could  not  read  their  Coleridge   or   their   Goethe 


90  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

without  emancipating  themselves  at  once  from  the 
wooden  philosophy  of  John  Locke,  over  which  they 
had  been  made  to  hammer  as  undergraduates.  They 
left  the  school  pure  idealists,  sure  of  the  real  presence 
of  God,  and  sure  that  society  was  to  be  made  over  again 
within  fifty  years. 

In  the  year  1831,  John  Gorham  Palfrey,  afterward 
known  as  the  historian  of  New  England,  and  an  aggres- 
sive anti-slavery  leader,  was  appointed  to  the  chair  of 
criticism  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments.^  He  brought 
to  his  duty,  not  only  a  very  accurate  knowledge  of  the 
subjects  especially  given  to  him,  but  that  acute  con- 
science, that  interest  in  history,  and  that  public  spirit, 
which  had  distinguished  him,  and  which  afterward  dis- 
tinguished him,  in  his  work  as  a  citizen.  Not  long  after 
this  time,  his  father  died  in  Louisiana,  leaving  a  large 
property,  of  which  a  considerable  part  was  in  slaves. 
The  other  heirs  proposed  that  their  Northern  brother 
should  take  his  part  in  money  and  leave  them  the 
slaves,  but  he  declined.  He  himself  went  to  Louis- 
iana, brought  with  him  to  the  North  his  portion  of  the 
slaves,  more  than  forty  in  number,  and  settled  them  in 
homes,  that  they  might  be  made  free.  He  thus  ranked 
as  a  practical  abolitionist,  long  before  he  connected 
himself  with  the  movement  which  bore  the  name  of 
abolition.  In  the  intimacies  of  Mr.  Palfrey's  home, 
the  students  of  the  Divinity  School  were  most  cordially 
welcomed,  and  to  friendships  formed  there  Freeman 
Clarke  owed  much  in  his  after  life. 

Any  one  who  knew  Mr.  Clarke  intimately  in  after 
years,  and  talked  with  him  on  theological  subjects, 
knows  how  accurately  and  carefully  he  went  into  the 
school-work  of  which  I  have  attempted  thus  to  give 
some  account.  At  the  same  time  he  was  reading,  one 
would  say,  everything  else  ;  but  especially  was  he  read- 
ing Goethe.  And  afterward,  in  referring  to  those 
1  He  was  made  Doctor  of  Dmnity  in  1834. 


MR.   CLARKE'S  EARLY  YEARS.  91 

happy  days,  he  would  always  speak  with  enthusiasm 
of  the  larger  life  which  opened  upon  so  many  of  them, 
under  Goethe's  lead.  In  the  chapter  of  Margaret  Ful- 
ler's biography  which  he  has  himself  edited,  are  allu- 
sions to  this  revelation,  and  to  the  eager  and  hopeful 
studies  which  he  conducted  with  her. 

Dr.  Frederick  Henry  Hedge,  the  friend  of  ]\Ir. 
Clarke's  whole  life,  in  speaking  of  him  to  me  after  his 
death,  said,  "  You  do  not  get  a  true  estimate  of  Clarke 
unless  you  see  him  as  a  poet.  He  approached  all  sub- 
jects from  the  poetical  side.  This  poetical  habit  of 
looking  at  everything  gave  him  that  fairness  which  you 
have  observed.  The  rest  of  us  have  written  as  if  we 
were  philosophers.  Clarke  always  wrote,  no  matter  on 
how  dull  a  subject,  as  a  poet  writes.  And  though  he 
has  written  very  few  verses,  it  is  because  he  is  a  poet 
that  he  has  done  what  he  has  done." 

I  believe  this  remark  of  this  careful  observer  and 
thinker  to  be  true,  and  I  shall  be  sorry  if  the  reader  of 
this  volume  does  not  think  so,  before  we  part. 

After  Dr.  Hedge  had  said  this  to  me,  I  found  the  fol- 
lowing passage  in  Mr.  Clarke's  journal  of  October  16, 
1832.  It  is  an  interesting  early  suggestion  of  the  men- 
tal habits  to  which  Dr.  Hedge  alluded,  fifty-seven  years 
after. 

..."  I  have  been  idle  this  term,  and  dissipated  in 
mind.  I  must  shut  myself  into  my  room,  and  make  my 
duties  the  absorbing  occupation  of  this  year.  I  wish  to 
study  the  Bible  this  year  thoroughl}',  and  without  any 
commentaries.  I  wish  to  write  a  good  deal,  to  get  an 
individual  style,  and  to  read  little,  and  that  principally 
German.  I  think  of  studying  the  early  history  of  our 
country,  and  writing  a  drama,  the  object  of  which 
shall  be  to  do  justice  to  the  spirit  of  those  times,  by 
exciting  a  respect  for  our  ancestors,  to  cherish  the 
patriotic  spirit  which  is  now  languishing.  I  will  make 
the  heroes  —  the  Puritans  —  look  forward  to  our  times. 


92  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

and  paint  their  high  hopes  of  what  can  be  done  for  hu- 
manity by  a  free,  religious,  enlightened  nation.  I  have 
always  been  prevented  from  expressing  myself  well  in 
poetry  by  the  obstacle  of  the  rhyme  ;  here  I  can  over- 
come this.  If  I  write  this,  I  can  follow  it  by  a  drama 
relating  to  the  time  of  the  Revolution  or  just  before  it, 
where  the  feeling  will  refer  backward  in  reverence,  and 
forward  in  yet  prouder  prophecy.'' 

There  is  no  evidence  that  he  ever  took  any  steps  for- 
ward in  fulfilling  this  dream  of  a  youth  of  twenty-two, 
who,  with  the  same  ink  which  records  his  intention  to 
"  read  little,"  proposes  to  study  the  early  history  of  the 
country  for  his  Puritan  Drama. 

From  his  journal.  ^'  All  growing  minds  may  be  di- 
vided into  two  classes,  the  grasshoppers  and  father-long- 
legs.  The  first  collect  themselves  together,  and  then 
the  whole  body  goes  at  once  to  a  definite  point,  by  a 
spring.  The  others  thrust  out  a  leg,  then  another,  then 
a  third,  as  far  as  they  will  go,  and  let  the  body  come 
after  as  it  can.  No.  1  are  apt  to  be  special  pleaders, 
one  -  sided  arguers,  but  coherent  and  comprehensive. 
No.  2  are  fair  and  candid  in  debate,  caring  for  truth 
and  not  at  all  for  consequences,  but  very  prone  to  con- 
tradict themselves  at  every  other  word.  I  believe  that 
I  am  a  father-long-legs  and  M.  a  grasshopper." 

Certainly  this  joking  description  of  himself  shows 
that  he  had  already  found  out  the  judicial  quality  or 
determination  of  seeing  all  sides  which  distinguished 
his  after  life. 

At  the  end  of  the  divinity  course,  in  those  days,  the 
young  men  of  the  Senior  class  began  to  write  sermons, 
and  to  preach  them  as  they  were  asked.  It  is  an  inter- 
esting thing  to  find  that  the  text  of  his  first  sermon 
was  the  text  of  his  life :  — 

"  Whatsoever  thy  hand  findeth  to  do,  do  it  with  thy 
might." 

The  manuscript,  afterward  burned  at  the  edges  in  an 


ME.    CLARKE'S  EARLY   YEARS.  93 

accidental  fire,  lies  before  me.  It  is  indorsed,  in  ink 
now  brown,  "  Preached,  Theological  School ;  first  ser- 
mon ;  "  —  again,  "Preached  at  Mr.  AVhitman's,  July  21, 
1833 ;  "  —  again,  "  Preached  without  notes,  December  1, 
1833." 

After  the  formal  introduction  to  the  sermon,  he  states 
the  text  as  meaning,  "  What  lies  at  hand ;  in  other 
words,  Perform  thy  nearest  diitij.''^  Such  was  the  reso- 
lution with  which  he  went  forth  to  battle. 

At  the  end  of  the  sermon  is  written  this  prayer :  — 

"Grant,  0  Almighty  Father,  that  as  our  days  on 
earth  are  multiplied,  we  may  attain  to  a  clearer  sense 
of  the  value  of  time,  and  a  more  faithful  use  of  passing 
opportunities.  Save  us  from  indolence,  from  indiffer- 
ence to  truth,  from  the  moral  death.  May  the  religion 
of  our  Master  kindle  in  our  hearts  the  flame  of  love  and 
piety.  Wilt  thou  answer  our  prayers  with  the  influ- 
ence of  thy  Holy  Spirit,  so  that,  partaking  more  and 
more  of  thy  divine  nature,  we  may  resemble  thee  more 
and  more  in  the  constancy  of  our  deeds  of  active  charity ; 
and  that,  when  we  enter  the  dark  valley  of  the  shadow 
of  death,  we  may  carry  the  remembrance  of  a  life  full  of 
worship  and  service.  Grant,  we  beseech  thee,  that  all 
words  of  truth  that  we  have  heard  this  day  may  be 
grafted  in  our  understanding,  and  bring  forth  fruits  of 
good  living  and  action,  to  the  honor  and  praise  of  thy 
name,  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.     Amen." 

Such  was  the  consecration  which  the  young  knight 
asked  for  his  resolution. 

In  the  public  exercises  with  which  the  course  at  the 
Divinity  School  closed,  his  subject  was,  "  Robert  Hall." 
The  solidity  of  the  treatment,  and  the  directness  of 
the  statement,  immediately  arrested  the  attention  of 
the  best  judges.  Dr.  James  Walker,  the  Nestor  of  an- 
other generation,  when  asked  his  opinion  of  the  gradu- 
ating class  by  an  enthusiastic  admirer  of  one  of  tlicm, 
instantly  referred  to  these  merits  as  they  showed  them- 
selves in  Clarke's  paper. 


CHAPTEK  VIII. 

JOURXALS    AND    LETTERS. 

1830-1840. 

There  were  of  course  a  thousand  temptations  to  a 
young  man  equipped  as  Mr.  Clarke  was  to  accept  the 
charge  of  some  vacant  parish  in  New  England,  and 
carry  on  his  work  among  those  with  whom  he  sympa- 
thized. But  that  enthusiasm  of  young  New  England, 
to  which  I  have  alluded,  would  not  permit  him  to  en- 
ter on  a  career  which  seemed  to  offer  so  little  oppor- 
tunity for  missionary  work.  He  preferred  to  carry  such 
gospel  as  he  had  to  a  region  where  there  were  few 
churches  of  the  denomination  to  which  he  belonged. 
In  his  Autobiography  he  has  told  us  of  the  motives 
which  influenced  him  in  his  decision  to  accept  an  invi- 
tation to  preach  in  Louisville,  Kentucky,  where  some 
persons,  mostly  of  New  England  origin,  had  formed  a 
Unitarian  church.^  This  was  in  1833.  At  that  time 
the  signs  of  the  coming  of  the  slavery  contest  were  but 
few.  Still  every  one  in  New  England  knew  that  Ken- 
tucky was  not  New  England,  and  the  whole  drift  of 
public  opinion  there  was  different  from  that  on  which 
Mr.  Clarke  and  his  friends  had  been  borne  along.  It 
was  not  many  years,  for  instance,  since  some  gentlemen 
of  Lexington,  Kentucky,  had  invited  Horace  Holley, 
the  eminent  liberal  preacher  of  Boston,  to  be  the  presi- 
dent of  the  University  of  Transylvania.  Dr.  Holley 
had  gone  there  with  all  the  prestige  which  any  man 

1  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher  went  with  his  family  to  Cincinnati  at  the 
time,  and  here  Mr.  Clarke's  acquaintance  with  them  began. 


JOURNALS  AND  LETTERS.  95 

could  carry  from  the  East  to  the  West ;  but  the  Pres- 
byterian ministers  of  Kentucky,  and  those  of  the  other 
Evangelical  churches,  were  quite  too  strong  for  any 
such  inroad.  Dr.  Holley  and  his  friends  were  given  to 
understand  that  there  was  no  need  for  any  such  men 
as  they  were  in  that  region.  This  was,  I  think,  the 
only  attempt  which  had  been  made,  before  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Louisville  Unitarian  church,  toward  the 
transfusion  of  the  New  England  religious  idea  into  the 
strictly  orthodox  flow  of  the  religious  life  of  Kentucky. 

The  journey  to  Kentucky,  as  will  be  seen  by  Mr. 
Clarke's  notes  and  letters,  took  more  time  than  a  jour- 
ney to  Alaska  would  take  to-day,  and  it  was  much  more 
difficult.  But  he  was  young  and  strong ;  he  liked  ad- 
venture ;  and  all  through  the  period  of  his  life  in  Louis- 
ville, which  lasted  seven  years,  he  was  ready,  at  the 
shortest  call,  to  undertake  even  difficult  travel  in  the 
interest  of  the  cause  to  which  he  had  devoted  his  life. 
He  soon  found  that  no  clergyman  would  exchange  pul- 
pits with  him,  excepting  Ephraim  Peabody,  the  Uni- 
tarian preacher  at  Cincinnati,  and  afterward  William 
G.  Eliot,  who  came  to  St.  Louis  in  1834.  These  three 
young  men  were  thus  knit  together  by  a  tie  of  the 
closest  and  tenderest  character.  Mr.  Clarke  also  formed 
that  acquaintance  with  the  family  of  Mr.  Huidekoper,  of 
Meadville,  Pennsylvania,  which  added  so  much  to  the 
happiness  of  his  after-life. 

In  that  after-life  he  was  very  fond  of  referring  to  the 
events,  not  to  say  the  adventures,  of  his  Louisville  life, 
which,  to  the  decorous  life  of  Boston  in  that  time,  were 
nearly  as  strange  as  the  adventures  of  John  Smith  or 
of  Columbus.  In  selecting  from  his  notes  passages 
which  will  illustrate  the  happy  years  he  spent  at  Louis- 
ville, one  is  only  puzzled  by  having  too  much  material. 

The  chapter  of  his  Autobiography  which  is,  alas,  the 
last  he  ever  wrote,  contains  his  general  review,  made 
fifty  years  after,  of  the   memories  which  he  had   of 


96  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

travel.  In  other  notes  it  appears  that,  on  the  first 
journey,  the  route  was  by  stage  from  Boston  to  Provi- 
dence, steamboat  to  Kew  York,  stage  and  railway  to 
Philadelphia,  stage  to  Baltimore,  stage  to  Wheeling 
over  the  mountains,  thence  by  steamboat  to  Louisville.^ 
During  his  seven  years  at  Louisville  he  came  back  to 
Boston  nearly  every  year  for  a  short  visit.  In  these 
journeys  he  took  different  routes.  One  was  from  Cin- 
cinnati by  stage  to  Cleveland ;  thence  the  steamboat 
took  him  to  Buffalo,  the  stage  to  Albany,  and  thence 
he  could  come  through  to  Boston  by  stage,  or  by  steam- 
boat to  Providence.  The  railroad  lines  between  Boston 
and  New  York  were  extending  all  through  these  seven 
years. 

The  Guyandotte  route,  which  is  spoken  of  in  the 
Autobiography,  was  by  boat  to  the  mouth  of  the  Guyan- 
dotte, and  then  over  the  mountains  to  Sulphur  Springs 
in  Virginia.  The  Pennsylvania  route  was  over  the 
Alleghanies  in  Pennsylvania,  passing  Laurel  Hill  and 
Bedford. 

He  arrived  in  Louisville,  for  the  first  time,  August 
4,  1833.  He  found  there  a  small  Unitarian  society, 
which  had  built  a  neat  and  well-proportioned  church. 
The  society  had  been  organized  by  a  few  earnest  Unita- 
rians, mostly  from  New  England.  Services  had  been 
held  for  several  years  in  different  places,  generally  in 
the  schoolhouse  of  Mr.  Francis  E.  Goddard,  a  man  of 
wide  attainments  and  an  able  teacher.  John  Pierpont, 
Bernard  Whitman,  and  Charles  Briggs  were  among  the 
preachers  who,  in  short  visits  to  Louisville,  had  inter- 
ested the  worshipers.  The  church  had  been  dedicated 
on  the  27th  of  May,  1832.  On  that  occasion  Dr.  Fran- 
cis Parkman,  and  James  Walker,  afterwards  president 
of  Harvard  College,  took  part  in  the  services. 

Mr.  Clarke's   immediate   predecessor  in  this  church 

^  The  railroad  from  Boston  to  Providence,  and  that  from  Boston 
to  Worcester,  were  not  opened  for  travel  until  June,  1835. 


JOURNALS  AND  LETTERS.  97 

was  the  Rev.  George  Chapman,  who  had  entered  its 
ministry  in  1832.  But  at  the  end  of  a  year  he  was 
obliged  to  leave  Louisville  on  account  of  failing  health ; 
and  he  died  of  pulmonary  disease  in  18o4.  I  write 
these  lines  with  a  renewal  of  that  respect  and  regard 
which  I  had,  sixty  years  ago,  for  one  of  my  first  Sun- 
day-school teachers.  George  Chapman,  as  a  young 
man,  impressed  me,  a  boy  of  seven,  as  perfectly  in  ear- 
nest in  what  he  said,  and  as  leading  a  life  wholly  conse- 
crated. 

The  congregation  which  Mr.  Clarke  found  was  not 
large  ;  but,  looking  back  upon  it,  we  see  it  was  remark- 
able. It  had  been  gathered,  as  has  been  said,  by  New 
Englanders ;  but,  beside  a  constituency  of  men  and 
women  of  what  may  be  called  the  old  Unitarian  line  of 
New  England,  it  embraced  others  from  England,  from 
Scotland,  from  Kentucky,  Virginia,  Maryland,  New 
Jersey,  Indiana,  and  other  States  of  the  Union.  His 
autobiography  speaks  of  one  and  another  of  these. 

Mr.  Clarke's  connection  with  the  "Western  Mes- 
senger'' maintained  and  enlarged  his  acquaintance 
with  the  leaders  of  the  liberal  religious  movement 
in  America.  He  printed  the  papers  of  Channing,  of 
Emerson,  of  Hedge,  and  of  many  of  those,  less  known 
then,  who  have  since  filled  important  places  in  liter- 
ature. Making  every  year  a  journey  to  Boston,  he 
kept  his  touch  with  New  England,  and  he  knew  very 
well  what  was  the  drift,  and,  indeed,  what  was  the  stag- 
nation, of  -religious  thought  in  New  England.  For  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  was  not  coming  in  quite  as  fast  as 
the  young  enthusiasts  of  1831  and  1832  had  expected. 
The  Unitarian  movement  was  not  outgrowing  its  criti- 
cal phase,  nor  emancipating  itself  from  the  social  con- 
ditions of  its  origin  as  fast  as  he  and  many  of  his 
friends  could  have  wished.  From  time  to  time,  one 
and  another,  for  various  reasons,  urged  him  to  come 
back  to  Boston.     I  have  not  found  among  his  papers 


98  DIABY  AND  CORBESFONDENCE. 

any  very  definite  statement  by  himself  as  to  the  rea- 
sons which  led  him  to  return  to  the  East ;  but  in  the 
letters  of  1840  some  of  them  are  suggested.  He  had 
never  been  installed  as  the  minister  of  the  Louisville 
church  ;  he  had  simply  accepted  the  invitation,  renewed 
every  year,  to  be  its  minister  for  one  year  more ;  and 
he  now  determined  not  to  accept  that  invitation  for  the 
eighth  time.  This  decision  having  been  made,  he 
eventually  left  Louisville  on  the  16th  day  of  June, 
1840. 

In  some  notes  which  were  used  as  a  brief  of  a  conver- 
sational lecture,  he  says,  "  Very  green  and  raw  when  I 
reached  Louisville. 

"  Nothing  to  say,  that  is,  that  seemed  worth  saying. 

"  Knew  no  one  ;  very  lonely  ;  so  for  three  months." 

Again,  "  Kentuckians,  Judge  Speed,  Judge  Nicholas, 
Judge  Eowan,  George  D.  Prentice,  Tom  Marshall, 
Humphrey  Marshall,  Judge  and  Mrs.  John  J.  Mar- 
shall, Garnett  Duncan,  Colonel  Woolley,  the  Popes." 

*''  Slavery,  mild.  People  said,  '  All  wrong,  inexcusa- 
ble ;  Kentucky  will  emancipate.'  Lectures,  debates, 
newspapers. 

"When  I  came  back  to  Boston,  it  was  harder  to 
speak  of  slavery  than  it  had  been  in  Kentucky.  I 
learned  my  anti-slavery  there  ;  a  great  change  after- 
ward in  public  sentiment  in  Kentucky. 

"Dueling.  Graves  and  Cilley,  Tom  Marshall  and 
John  Rowan.^ 

"  Character  of  people :  manly,  intelligent,  generous, 
fresh ;  natural  refinement." 

^  "When  I  went  to  Kentucky,  dueling-  was  considered  entirely 
proper  and  necessary.  I  preached  a  sermon  ag-ainst  it,  on  the  occasion 
of  a  very  extraordinary  duel  whieli  had  just  taken  place ;  and  the 
father  of  one  of  the  combatants,  who  had  been  a  United  States  sena- 
tor, was  in  church  that  day.  He  said  that  he  could  not  understand 
what  had  got  into  Mr.  Clarke's  head  to  preach  against  dueling  ;  he 
might  as  well  preach  against  courage."  —  Anti-Slavery  Days,  p.  27. 


JOURNALS  AND  LETTERS.  99 

In  another  note  he  speaks  of  his  work  in  the  schools. 
Elsewhere  he  speaks  of  the  bloodthirsty  people  who 
existed  then,  as  even  now,  in  certain  wild  sections  of 
the  Mississippi  Valley. 

A  list  w^hich  he  made  of  some  of  the  distinguished 
Kentuckians  whom  he  then  knew  recalls  many  memo- 
ries of  interest  in  our  history  :  — 

"  Judge  Eowan,  eminent  lawyer,  senator  of  the  United 
States.  Highly  courteous  gentleman  and  scholar  ;  had 
fought  at  least  one  duel. 

"  Joseph  Hamilton  Daviess  ;  farmer's  son  ;  how  he 
studied  law.  Wonderful  speaker.  His  trip  to  Wash- 
ington ;  his  resistance  to  Burr ;  his  death. 

"  George  D.  Prentice  ;  his  attacks  on  Jackson.  His 
wife's  party  ;  I  refused  wine ;  he  asked  why." 

To  his  memories  of  early  life,  w^ritten  after  half  a  cen- 
tury had  passed,  I  add  a  few  extracts  from  his  own  let- 
ters and  those  of  his  correspondents,  and  a  very  few 
from  his  journals. 

TO    MARGARET    FULLER. 

Ohio  River,  July  31,  1833. 

During  the  w^eek  ^  many  things  took  place  to  move 
me.  There  were  a  great  many  "last  times"  to  feel, 
last  things  to  do,  last  words  to  speak.  Our  exhibition 
was  to  me  interesting,  affecting.  I  loved  my  class- 
mates. .  .  .  You  can  see  my  part,  for  it  is  to  be  printed 
in  the  next  ''Examiner,"  by  the  suggestion  of  H. 
Hedge  to  Mr.  Walker.  Mr.  Greenwood  also  treated  me 
with  great  kindness.  On  Sunday  I  preached  at  AVal- 
tham,  and  in  the  evening  was  ordained.  .  .  . 

My  thought  after  the  ordination  w^as,  "  God  forgive 
me  for  having  called  this  a  mere  ceremony."  It  was 
much  more,  —  I  was  deeply  moved.  .  .  . 

It  was  bitter  to  take  leave  of  grandfather;  though 
you  may  be  sure  there  was  no  scene ;  he  simply  shook 
my  hand  in  silence.  .  .  . 

1  The  week  before  leaving  home  for  Louisville. 


100  DIABY  AND  COBEESFONDENCE. 

I  felt  very  vacant  and  unindividual  till  I  got  upon 
the  Newcastle  Eailroad,  where,  by  steam,  we  travel 
sixteen  miles  in  an  hour  and  ten  minutes.  Twilight 
was  deepening  into  darkness,  hastened  by  a  thunder- 
storm, which  came  up  in  terrible  might  from  the  west, 
while  a  full  moon  floated  on  the  opposite  blue  sky.  We 
flew  through  the  rain  and  lightning,  four  enormous 
carriages,  chained  together,  and  crossed  the  Chesapeake 
amid  a  continuation  of  the  same  storm. 

TO    MARGARET    FULLER. 

Louisville,  Sqjtember  13,  1833. 

I  have  just  been  attending  the  funeral  of  one  of  the 
first  settlers,  —  one  General  Breckenridge,  aged  seventy- 
eight.  He  came  here  in  1780,  having  been  in  the  Revo- 
lutionary War.  At  that  time  the  settlers  were  few, 
and  these  few  lived  in  a  fort,  for  fear  of  Indians. 

...  I  was  asked  to  perform  the  service,  which  was 
in  the  city ;  but  he  was  buried  on  his  own  place,  six 
miles  out  of  town,  and  they  wished  me  to  go  out  and 
make  a  prayer  at  the  grave.  W^e  passed  along  an 
avenue  winding  through  the  forest  for  half  a  mile, 
until  we  reached  the  house,  —  a  one-story  building,  the 
sitting-room  decorated  with  a  harpsichord  and  two  old- 
fashioned  card-tables.  The  family  burial-place  was  at 
a  little  distance  beyond  the  house.  After  the  service, 
one  of  my  friends  offered  me  his  saddle-horse  to  re- 
turn, and  I  had  a  beautiful  ride  through  the  forest. 
The  forests  of  Kentucky  are  said  to  surpass  those  of 
any  part  of  Europe.  This  was  chiefly  composed  of  syca- 
mores of  tremendous  size,  and  lofty,  tapering  beeches 
with  thick  clumps  at  the  top.  The  trunks  of  the  syca- 
mores are  often  six  and  eight  feet  in  diameter.  The 
oak  is  common  also.  .  .  . 

Louisville  is  perfectly  flat,  and  there  are  few  pleasant 
walks,  it  is  so  dusty  and  muddy.  There  are  many  cus- 
toms odd  to  a  Yankee.     For  example,  nothing  is  more 


JOURNALS  AND  LETTERS.  101 

common  than  for  builders  of  houses  to  collect  their 
shavings  in  the  middle  of  the  street,  and  set  fire  to 
them.  Every  evening,  in  walking  about,  one  sees  half 
a  dozen  of  these  fires.  There  has  been  a  duel  in  agita- 
tion, and  an  assassination  attempted  among  some  fire- 
eaters  here.  The  progress  of  the  affair  was  known  to 
the  whole  city.  It  was  the  common  talk  that  Mr. 
Prentice  had  offered  Mr.  Trotter  to  fight  with  rifles  at 
forty-five  paces,  or  with  pistols  at  six,  or  with  swords 
or  dirks.  And  then  it  was  said  that  Mr.  Trotter  had 
demanded,  on  account  of  his  near-sightedness,  to  fight 
with  pistols  at  each  other's  breast ;  and  then  the  nego- 
tiation broke  off.  Presently  we  heard  that  Mr.  Trotter 
had  shot  Mr.  P.  in  the  back,  in  the  street,  etc.  They 
are  rather  a  bloody  set  of  fellows,  and  they  call  their 
cruelty  chivalry.  The  system  of  slavery  colors  every- 
thing. 

TO    W.    H.    CHAXXIXG. 

Louisville,  October  4,  1833. 

When  I  arrived  here  I  was  at  first  disheartened  by 
the  small  number  who  attend  the  church,  and  by  the 
feeling,  which  for  a  long  time  ^  I  was  unable  to  con- 
quer, that  my  efforts  were  wholly  ineffectual,  and  not 
likely  ever  to  become  less  so.  Yet,  even  then,  I  did 
not  think  of  yielding  till  a  full  experiment  had  been 
tried.  ...  If  I  have  not  faith  enough  in  the  truths  to 
which  I  have  solemnly  devoted  myself  to  persevere 
through  a  few  difficulties,  I  will  give  up  my  post  to 
some  better  man. 

The  number  of  my  hearers  has  increased  a  little.  I 
have  written  a  dozen  sermons  since  I  have  been  here  ; 
and  with  this,  a  weekly  lecture,  Sunday-school,  temper- 
ance societies,  attending  funerals,  parish  visiting,  get- 
ting acquainted  with  the  place  and  people,  my  mind 
and  time  have  been  pretty  well  occupied. 

^  He  had  arrived  in  Louisville  early  in  Auj^ust.  Evidently  he 
measured  time  by  his  feelings,  and  not  by  the  almanac. 


102  DIAEY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

I  have  become  better  acquainted  with  St.  Paul's  char- 
acter, and  admire  him  more  than  ever.  When  I  was  a 
child  I  disliked  him,  and  kept  to  the  Gospels.  .  .  .  We 
admire  in  the  Evangelists  the  love  which  has  attached 
itself  to  great  things  without  knowing  they  are  great ; 
in  St.  Paul  we  sympathize  with  the  intellectual  percep- 
tion which  enables  him  rightly  to  appreciate  things 
high  and  low,  and  to  understand  the  spirit  and  letter 
of  the  gospel,  —  to  grasp  it  in  its  essentials  and  in  its 
details.  One  of  these  years  I  intend  to  write  a  life  of 
St.  Paul. 

I  wish  to  hear  regularly  concerning  both  your  inner 
and  your  outward  man,  and  also  concerning  C.  Kobbins 
and  our  other  classmates.  Give  them  my  love,  and  tell 
them  that,  notwithstanding  the  thousand  miles  between 
us,  they  are  nearer  to  me  than  when  we  lived  under  the 
same  roof.  May  I  trust  you  for  an  account  of  their 
"  weaving  and  working  "  ? 

TO    W.    H.    CHANNING. 
Lexington,  Kentucky,  November  8,  1833. 

I  have  penetrated  thus  far  into  the  interior,  and  have 
had,  on  the  whole,  many  reasons  for  being  pleased  with 
what  I  have  experienced  and  observed.  In  the  first 
place  I  must  thank  Heaven  for  "the  freedom  of  the 
mind  which  has  been  more  than  wealth  to  me/'  which 
makes  it  my  habit,  wherever  I  go,  to  look  first  for  the 
good,  and  take  it  in  as  I  best  may,  instead  of  shutting 
up  my  sense  and  putting  on  it  the  padlock  of  personal 
taste  and  rigid  opinion.  Is  there  danger  of  my  being 
moulded  by  each  new  compression  of  circumstances  ? 
There  is  danger,  I  grant,  of  sometimes  being  drifted 
from  my  opinions  ;  but  the  truths,  which  lie  five  fathom 
deep  in  my  heart,  I  hope  never  to  lose. 

I  have  received  attention  and  hospitable  welcome 
from  the  Episcopalians  of  this  city,  Bishop  Smith, 
President  Peers,  etc.     I  presented  myself  among  them 


JOURNALS  AND  LETTERS.  103 

with  openness  and  frankness,  and  I  have  no  cause  to 
complain  of  my  reception. 

Secondly.  I  am  pleased  with  the  spirit  manifested  at 
this  education  convention,  called  from  all  parts  of  the 
State  for  the  purpose  of  petitioning  the  legislature  to 
act  in  behalf  of  popular  education.  .  .  .  We  are  going 
to  do  something  to  rouse  the  people  of  the  State  to  the 
business.  There  is  to  be  a  more  general  convention  at 
Frankfort,  and  a  State  education  society  formed. 

Thirdly.  The  opinions  I  have  everywhere  heard  ex- 
pressed on  the  subject  of  slavery  are  encouraging.  The 
general,  boldly  expressed  sentiment  is,  that  slavery  is 
a  curse  in  every  point  of  view  to  Kentucky,  that  there 
is  no  excuse  for  its  existing  a  moment  in  this  State. 
In  the  stage  with  me  were  two  Kentuckians.  We  met 
four  negroes  chained,  preceding  a  moving  family.  It 
was  the  first  time  I  had  seen  such  a  sight.  I  expressed 
my  disgust.  So  did  these  gentlemen,  both  slavehold- 
ers. One  said  that  slave  -  dealers  were  held  in  such 
abhorrence  that  by  no  effort  could  the  power  of  their 
wealth  ever  bring  them  into  respectable  society,  even 
after  retiring  from  business. 

Fourthly.  The  prescriptive  manners  of  the  clerical 
body  are  abolished  in  the  West,  and  they  are  influential 
only  in  proportion  to  actual  ability.  ...  A  free  con- 
versational elocution,  and  an  easy  rhetoric,  crowded 
with  figures  and  illustrations,  and  avoiding  all  cant 
phrases  and  solemn  phraseology,  is  the  characteristic  of 
every  popular  preacher.  And  I  have  listened  since  I 
have  been  out  here  to  such  preaching  as  in  every  way 
surpasses  Eastern  oratory.  .  .  . 

Every  day  I  become  more  interested  in  the  character 
of  this  great  Western  people.  Its  simplicity  charms 
me,  its  openness  commands  my  sympathy,  its  free,  un- 
fettered activity  calls  for  my  admiration. 


104  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 


TO    W.    G.    ELIOT. 

December  4,  1833. 
...  I  think  your  principle  of  faith  is  nobly  dis- 
played in  Fichte,  if  by  faith  you  understand,  as  I  do,  a 
realizing  sense  of  spiritual  things,  the  sense  by  which 
truths  are  seen  as  real  and  substantial  things,  no  less 
real  than  the  material  objects  around  us,  yes,  more  so, 
because  eternal.  Faith  is,  in  my  opinion,  not  the  belief 
of  propositions  or  dogmas  of  any  kind,  but  a  sense  of 
truth,  which  may  be  stronger  or  weaker.  All  faith  is 
essentially  faith  in  God,  inasmuch  as  God  is  the  source 
of  all  truths,  the  centre  of  the  spiritual  world.  .  .  . 
You  ask  me  about  the  West,  and  a  suitable  preparation 
for  coming  to  it.  Everything  which  liberalizes  your 
mind,  which  enables  you  to  despise  the  form  in  com- 
parison with  the  essence,  the  letter  in  comparison  with 
the  spirit,  everything  which  increases  your  faith  and 
submission  to  the  will  of  God,  and  patient  determina- 
tion to  work  for  his  glory,  is  a  preparation  for  the 
West.  Everything  here  is  free,  open,  active.  To  be 
useful  one  must  lay  aside  all  narrow  tastes  and  exclu- 
sive feelings,  and  from  a  pure  love  to  humanity  plunge 
into  the  life  around  him.  With  such  a  spirit  as  this  I 
think  the  West  a  noble  field,  it  is  so  stirring,  so  grow- 
ing. You  feel  your  life,  you  feel  full  of  energy,  your 
soul  grows  and  expands  with  every  pulse  throb.  .  .  . 
Oh,  how  I  wish  you  would  decide  to  come  out  here. 
You  could  be  ten  times  as  useful,  ten  times  as  happy 
out  here.  I  think  the  soul  grows  as  fast  as  the  trees 
do.  You  must  come,  however,  determined  to  regard 
only  what  is  real,  not  what  is  apparent,  to  trace  good- 
ness and  evil  to  their  roots,  and  never  be  repelled  by 
the  surface. 

FROM    HIS    JOURNAL. 

1834.   September.     I  propose  during  the  present  year 
to  collect  materials  for  the  following  books,  and  to  pre- 


JOURNALS  AND  LETTERS.  105 

pare  some  of  them  for  the  press.     The  matter  is  all  to 
be  gathered  from  actual  life  and  experience. 

1.  Prayers  and  Helps  to  Devotion. 

2.  Aids  to  Understanding  and  Applying  Scripture. 

3.  The  Clerical  Profession  at  the  Present  Day,  and 
Eeligion  among  the  Educated. 

4.  Poems.     Journal.     With  Illustrations.  '' 

5.  The  Power  of  Faith,  a  National  and  Religious 
Epic.     Pilgrim  Fathers. 

6.  The  Power  of  Conscience :  Another. 

1834.  October  12.  Preached  in  morning  on  Duel- 
ing.    Afternoon  on  Prayer.     Lesson  to  Sunday-school. 

November  1.  I  feel  that  as  I  object  to  the  revival 
method  of  driving  persons  into  religion,  I  ought  to  be 
always  practising  the  other  method  of  gentle  and  steady 
persuasion.  May  God  give  me  strength  so  to  do  that  I 
may  not  be  unfruitful.  ...  I  think  we  should  be  either 
at  work  or  at  prayer  all  the  time. 

TO    MARGARET    FULLER. 

October  22,  1834. 

I  have  lately  been  a  good  deal  interested  in  the  Poles 
who  are  journeying  to  their  lands  in  Illinois.  One,  in  par- 
ticular, I  have  become  acquainted  with  ;  a  young  man  of 
education  and  fine  feelings  ;  the  son  of  a  general  officer, 
who  was  cruelly  treated  by  the  Russians,  and  sent  into  Si- 
beria.   His  name  is  Casimir  Mickiewicz,  from  Lithuania. 

Mickiewicz  was  in  several  battles ;  he  plays  beauti- 
fully on  the  piano-forte.  He  had  letters  to  Cincinnati 
from  General  La  Fayette.  He  might  support  himself 
by  teaching  music,  but  prefers  to  go  with  his  country- 
men to  their  lands. ^ 

1  A  gfood  many  Poles  came  to  Louisville  In  1834,  and  Mr.  Clarke, 
•with  others,  made  zealous  efforts  to  find  employment  for  them.  This 
was  a  difficult  task,  hecause  most  of  the  Polish  refugees  were  from 
aristocratic  families,  had  learned  no  trade,  and  considered  most  forms 
of  labor  beneath  them,  —  they  could  fight,  but  they  could  not  work. 


106  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

I  am  staying  mineralogy,  at  present,  with  Mrs.  Wind- 
ship,  who  is  altogether  a  superior  person.  I  expect  to 
become  a  little  acquainted  with  the  materials  on  which 
I  have  been  moving  about  all  my  days  without  trou- 
bling myself  before  to  examine  them.  I  think  that 
mineralogy  and  geology  are  in  great  want  of  a  Cuvier 
or  Goethe  to  bring  them  into  systematic  shape  j  put- 
ting them,  I  mean,  into  a  system  which  shall  be  no 
arbitrary  collocation,  but  shall  contain  the  law  of  its 
organization  within  itself,  so  that  every  part  shall  co- 
here and  be  dependent  on  every  other  part,  and  all 
make  a  whole. 

After  a  good  deal  of  effort  all  were  provided  for  except  three  ;  and 
for  these  also,  after  a  time,  Mr.  Clarke  succeeded  in  obtaining  em- 
ployment in  a  paper  factory  belonging  to  a  friend  of  his,  —  and  a 
lodging  was  provided  for  the  three  Poles  in  the  factory  building. 

A  few  days  after  this  arrangement  had  been  made,  Mr.  Clarke  met 
these  gentlemen  in  the  street.  He  stopped,  and  inquired  how  they 
were  getting  on. 

"  Oh,  we  have  left  that  place !  "  said  they.     "  We  were  obliged  to 

leave   it.     We  could  not  possibly  stay  there.     Mr.  treated  us 

very  badly ;  he  insulted  us  ;  it  was  out  of  the  question  to  remain  any 
longer." 

"Indeed!    I  have  always  had  a  high  opinion  of  Mr. .     How  did 

he  ill-treat  you  ?  " 

"Oh,  he  insulted  us  ;  he  required  us  to  perform  menial  offices;  he 
expected  us  to  build  our  own  fires." 

"  Why,  I  build  my  own  fire  every  day,"  said  Mr.  Clarke.  But  the 
wrath  of  the  offended  Poles  was  not  to  be  reasoned  away. 

"  How  do  you  expect  to  earn  your  living  ?  "  asked  Mr.  Clarke. 

"  We  intend  to  give  a  concert,"  said  they.  "  Will  you  take  some 
tickets  ?  " 

Of  another  of  the  Poles,  Mr.  Clarke  writes  in  his  diary  :  — 

"  Brosowski,  a  Pole,  came  to  see  me.  Speaks  Latin,  French,  Span- 
ish, German,  as  fast  as  possible ;  plays  on  piano-forte,  guitar,  etc.  ; 
paints  and  draws,  and  cannot  earn  his  bread !  He  says,  '  Non  habeo 
laborum,  piget  raendicare.'  I  gave  him  an  old  coat,  which  he  took 
with  delight,  because  he  would  now  look  like  a  '  homo  doctus." 
Also  a  letter  and  some  money,  and  he  went  off  fully  satisfied." 


JOURNALS  AND  LETTERS.  107 


FROM    HIS    JOURNAL. 

1834.  November  17.  Went  about  with  Pole.  Put 
him  at  shop  of  Mr.  Smith. 

November  18.     Searching  employment  for  Poles. 

November  19.     Went  to  Tyler's  with  Poles. 

November  24.  Went  to  see  Blumenthal  about  Schil- 
ler's letters.  Pole  at  Mr.  Smith's  a  word  of  advice. 
Phelps,  dying  man ;  prayer  and  religious  conversation. 
With  Mr.  Low,  to  find  a  guitar  for  Mickiewicz. 

TO    MARGARET    FULLER. 

November,  1834. 

My  Poles  do  not  behave  themselves  very  well ;  they 
trouble  me  somewhat  by  their  foolish  and  childish  no- 
tions, for  which  I  suppose  they  are  not  much  to  blame, 
but  which  make  them  hard  to  deal  with.  .  .  .  George 
Keats  is  one  of  the  best  men  in  the  world.  And  I 
have  taken  a  strong  liking  to  the  character  of  his  brother 
John,  which  has  just  dawned  on  me  through  the  medium 
of  his  letters  and  accounts  of  his  personal  history.  .  .  . 

I  have  learned  how  to  tell  stories  with  ease,  and  to 
make  them  intelligible  and  interesting  to  children  ;  and, 
what  is  not  difficult  to  one  in  earnest,  to  extract  a 
moral,  or,  rather,  to  convey  a  moral  influence,  by  any 
story  in  the  world.  My  Sunday-school,  therefore,  is  in- 
teresting to  me. 

TO    W.    H.    CHANNIXG. 

January  15,  1835. 
...  I  am  hopeful,  and  consider  the  great  beauty  of 
truth  till  I  think  it  must  prevail.  I  look  away  from 
the  wickedness,  the  woeful  entanglement,  the  deep  pollu- 
tion, the  great  perversions,  the  gross  worldliness  of  man, 
and  think  of  his  infinite  origin,  his  immortal  home,  his 
likeness  to  God,  and  the  accomplishments  of  the  few 
noble.     Now  this  is  one-sided,  I  grant  you,  but  real  evil 


108  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

makes  itself  evident  all  too  soon  ;  let  us,  therefore,  put 
on  the  whole  armor  of  faith,  that  we  may  be  able  to 
stand  in  that  evil  day.  Whether  I  shall  ever  do  any- 
thing great,  I  know  not,  but  I  will  do  little  things 
from  great  motives.  "  She  hath  done  what  she  could  " 
is  the  highest  praise  created  beings  can  receive. 

TO    G.    T.    D. 

February  20,  1835. 
I  send  you  the  prospectus  of  a  magazine  which  we 
are  about  getting  under  way,  and  which  we  mean  to 
make  the  leading  Western  periodical.  We  intend  to 
combine  literature  and  other  matters  with  religion,  and 
make  it  generally  attractive.  .  .  .  We  shall  try  to  get 
the  aid  of  leading  and  known  men  through  the  land. 
Whoever  helps  us  helps  not  us,  but  the  cause  of  freedom 
and  truth.  We  gain  nothing  but  an  addition  to  the 
weight  of  labor  and  abuse  which  is  already  upon  our 
shoulders.  We  intend  that  it  shall  be  Weste7m  in  its 
character,  and  as  free  from  merely  conventional  restric- 
tions in  spirit  as  may  be. 

TO    MARGARET    FULLER. 

March  16,  1835. 
.  .  .  You  ask  how  many  hours  a  day  I  study  ?  Per- 
haps three  or  four.  What  ?  I  study  Greek ;  I  am  de- 
termined to  understand  that  language  passably.  I  study 
the  Bible  ;  German  theology  a  little  ;  Goethe  not  at  all ; 
St.  Paul,  much.  I  study  how  to  talk  so  as  to  impress 
the  minds  of  children  and  of  men.  I  study  Jacob 
Abbott's  books  a  good  deal.  .  .  . 

TO    MARGARET   FULLER. 

Sunday,  April  12,  1835. 
To-day  I  have  been  preaching  two  sermons,  and  have 
given   a   Sunday-school  lesson.     Our   school    numbers 
sixty  pupils  now.      To-morrow  I  have   a  Bible-class ; 


JOUBNALS  AND  LETTERS.  109 

Wednesday,  a  lecture  to  write  and  deliver  before  a 
phrenological  society ;  Thursday,  a  lecture  in  my  church 
at  five  p.  M. ;  Friday  (Good  Friday),  another  at  the  same 
hour ;  Saturday,  to  write  a  sermon  or  two  for  Easter, 
and  a  story  for  my  Sunday-school  children.  Beside 
this  I  must  make  calls,  and  go  over  to  Jeffersonville, 
and  perhaps  preach  Tuesday  night.  The  worst  is  that 
all  this  toil  seems  to  do  no  good.  Mafiitt  made  a  hun- 
dred converts  here  two  years  ago,  of  whom  five  only 
were  in  the  church  six  months  after.  However,  matters 
improve  decidedly.  Five  or  ten  years  hence  it  will  be 
a  good  place,  and  then  happy  will  he  be  who  has  grown 
up  with  it.  .  .  . 

TO    MARGARET    FULLER. 

Lexington,  Ky.,  June  14, 1835. 

I  have  come  to  this  city,  first,  to  see  Miss  Martineau; 
second,  to  get  some  subscribers  to  the  "  Western  Mes- 
senger ;  "  third,  to  preach,  and  to  get  acquainted  with 
the  people  here.  .  .  . 

I  saw  Miss  Martineau,  and  had  a  capital  time  with 
her.  I  talked  with  her  about  four  hours.  Dined  with 
her,  with  only  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Irwin  (Clay's  daughter 
and  son-in-law)  and  Miss  Jeffrey.  She  began  immedi- 
ately to  talk  about  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Furness  with  great 
enthusiasm.  It  seems  that  she  was  with  them  while 
in  Philadelphia,  and  Fanny  Kemble  came  to  see  them 
every  day.  Mr.  Furness  is  a  great  admirer  of  Carlyle, 
and  he  converted  Miss  M.,  and  she  admires  Carlyle  just 
as  enthusiastially  as  he.  She  says  it  is  a  great  mistake 
to  suppose  her  a  mere  utilitarian ;  she  is  preparing  the 
people  for  Carlyleism,  for  they  must  be  fed  and  clothed 
before  they  can  be  spiritualized. 

FROM    HIS    JOURXAL. 

1835.  December  10.  Left  Louisville  at  5  p.  m.  for 
New  Orleans  [and  Mobile].     A  sinking  of  spirit  on  my 


110  DIAEY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

departure  showed  that  I  was  leaning  on  outward  things. 
But  I  commended  myself  to  God,  knowing  my  purpose 
w^as  pure  and  would  be  accepted  by  Him.  On  His  arm 
I  lean  wholly,  committing  myself  and  my  ways  to  Him, 
and  believing  He  will  direct  my  path  aright,  to  His 
glory  and  to  the  good  of  souls. 

TO    MARGARET    FULLER. 

Steamboat  Leonidas,  December  14,  1835. 

I  am  on  my  way  to  Mobile ;  what  to  do  there  God 
will  determine.  .  .  . 

We  came  out  of  the  mouth  of  the  Ohio  Eiver  at  mid- 
night ;  I  rose  and  went  out  on  the  guard,  and  looked 
abroad  upon  the  meeting  of  the  waters.  We  were  al- 
ready on  the  "  Grandfather  of  all  Eivers,"  as  the  Per- 
sians would  call  it ;  and  the  ''  Father  of  Waters,"  as  it 
is  called  by  the  Indians,  those  "  Western  Orientalists.'^ 

I  preached  a  sermon  yesterday,  exhorting  my  fellow- 
passengers  to  consider  and  confess  themselves  strangers 
and  pilgrims  on  the  earth,  as  well  as  on  the  Mississippi 
River.  That  was  sound  doctrine,  but  did  not  quite 
convince  my  own  mind.  When  traveling  on  the  river, 
I  am  quite  willing  to  put  up  with  bad  company  and  ac- 
commodations for  a  time,  but  I  do  not  succumb  so  quietly 
to  a  like  necessity  in  that  other  journey.  "  It  will 
soon  be  over  "  does  not  strike  me  as  an  argument  for 
patience,  equally  conclusive  in  the  two  cases.  I  remem- 
ber that  I  was  ever  disgusted  by  that  religious  view  of 
life  which  describes  it  as  something  very  disagreeable, 
which  cannot  be  enjoyed,  but  must  be  just  endured  for 
a  little.  Unkind  I  hold  it  to  our  fellow-pilgrims,  to 
look  them  in  the  face  with  this  saintly  expression  of 
disgust ;  ungrateful  to  God,  who  has  put  us  into  an  ad- 
mirably furnished  school,  to  say  the  least,  fitted  up  with 
such  cabinets,  book-shelves,  and  varied  apparatus,  that 
we  ought  to  feel  pleasantly  about  it  while  we  stay. 
Yea !   even  disobedient  is  it,  and  the  part  of  a  wicked 


JOURNALS  AND  LETTERS.  Ill 

and  slothful  servant,  to  bury  his  talent  in  the  earth,  be- 
cause but  one  is  given  him,  and  hide  his  Lord's  money. 
Oh,  grumbling  religious,  or  grumbling  irreligious,  man, 
grumble  no  longer,  but  fight  7ioiu  the  good  fight  of 
faith ;  lay  hold  now,  with  both  hands,  of  eternal  life, 
and  in  the  midst  of  the  Finite  discover  an  Infinite ;  be- 
gin Eternity,  while  yet  shrouded  in  the  mists  of  Time. 

TO    H.    T.    D. 

Mississippi  Rfver,  below  Memphis, 

Steamer  Leonidas,  December,  1835. 

It  was  no  slight  pain  to  me  to  hear  of  the  departure  of 
my  grandfather.  He  was  the  best  friend  I  ever  had,  or 
can  hope  to  have.     His  love  for  me  was  wonderful.  .  .  . 

Last  night  I  was  much  shocked  by  the  cold-blooded 
and  unfeeling  way  in  which  a  Natchez  man  described 
his  exploits  in  flogging  negroes.  He  told,  with  a  truly 
fiendish  glee,  hoAv  he  flogged  a  man  nearly  to  death  a 
day  or  two  before  on  suspicion  of  stealing.  But  my 
head  is  full  of  stories  about  hangings  and  murders. 

TO    EDITOR    OF    "WESTERN    MESSENGER." 

New  Orleans,  December  22,  1835. 

...  I  arrived  on  Friday,  and  preached  on  Sunday  to 
a  large  audience  in  Brother  Clapp's  church.  .  .  . 

I  preached  Sunday  before  last  on  the  steamboat  to  a 
most  attentive  audience,  composed  of  the  passengers 
and  crew.  I  had  a  good  deal  of  religious  conversation 
with  the  "  publicans  and  sinners,"  the  blasphemers  and 
gamblers,  and  found  them  serious  and  willing  to  be 
rebuked.  I  find  a  soul  of  goodness  in  things  evil 
wherever  I  go,  and  my  heart  leaps  with  joy  at  each 
new  discovery  of  something  pure,  some  love  of  truth  in 
the  roughest  shell,  the  most  thorny  husk  of  humanity. 
Confidence  in  men  unlocks  their  hearts.  Not  by  look- 
ing on  them  as  totally  depraved,  but  by  believing  there 
is  something  good  in  them,  and  speaking  to  them  as  if 
you  thought  so ;  this  breaks  down  their  opposition. 


112  DIABY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 


FROM    HIS    JOURNAL. 

1836.  Mobile.  Tell  my  object  in  coming.  Not  to 
preach  to  the  religious  community,  or  to  those  under 
their  influence.  But  a  large  class  not  under  their  in- 
fluence cannot  be  reconciled  with  it,  yet  want  a  religion, 
have  none,  feel  the  need  of  it.  These  I  want  to  ad- 
dress, take  them  on  their  own  ground ;  they  are  prac- 
tical deists  and  atheists,  I  suppose.  I  want  to  make 
them  Christians  ;  not  nominal,  but  real.  I  hope  to  do 
this,  because  I  have  different  instruments  to  do  it  with, 
and  have  seen  their  influence. 

I  appeal  to  your  understanding.  I  hope  to  give  you 
a  reason  for  everything  I  ask  you  to  do.  I  shall  not 
dogmatize.  I  respect  the  rights  of  your  conscience.  I 
tell  you  at  the  outset  what  I  want  to  do.  I  wish  to 
produce  repentance  toward  God  and  faith  in  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  If  I  can  induce  any  one  to  repent  and 
believe,  I  have  done  what  I  came  for.  If  not,  why,  it 
is  either  my  fault,  or  your  fault,  or  God's  time  has  not 
come. 

TO  H.    T.    D. 

"  Irish  Jemmy's  Bar," 
12  miles  below  Rock  Cave,  Ohio  River, 

February  10,  1836. 

I  reckon  you  never  have  received  a  letter  from  Irish 
Jemmy^s  Bar  before,  and  I  sincerely  hope  you  never 
will  again  from  any  friend  in  like  circumstance  with 
myself.  We  are  frozen  up  hard  and  fast,  have  been 
lying  here  and  hereabout  a  week,  and  cannot  say  when 
we  shall  get  away.  We  cannot  get  at  stages  ;  we  can- 
not hire  horses ;  the  roads  are  in  no  condition  for  walk- 
ing, or,  rather,  roads  there  are  none.  AVe  have  no 
books  nor  newspapers,  and  for  those  who,  like  myself, 
neither  gamble,  drink,  chew,  nor  smoke,  there  remains 
but  one  resource,  writing  letters. 

I  write  in  complete  ignorance  of  everything  which 


JOURNALS  AND  LETTERS.  113 

has  happened  in  Yankee-land  or  Louisville,  since  Janu- 
ary 1,  1836.  I  had  a  letter  of  that  date  from  mother, 
since  when  I  have  heard  no  word  from  friendly  lip  or 
pen.  I  have  been  seeing,  feeling,  thinking,  and  acting, 
however,  —  most  of  the  hrst  and  last.  I  have  seen  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico,  the  magnolia  tree,  the  live-oak.  Gen- 
eral Gaines,  and  some  half-dozen  pleasant  men  and 
women  of  New  Orleans,  a  cotton  press,  portions  of 
Illinois,  Missouri,  Arkansas,  Tennessee,  Mississippi, 
Louisiana,  and  Alabama,  an  immense  host  of  blacklegs 
and  rowdies,  and  the  Mississippi  River.  I  have  formed 
a  society  at  Mobile,  and  have  persuaded  the  members  to 
subscribe  a  number  of  thousands  of  dollars  to  build  a 
church;  have  made  some  good  friends  and  acquaint- 
ances, and  have  induced  some  of  them  to  think  better 
of  Christianity  than  before.  I  have  also,  in  leisure 
moments,  written  a  review  of  Butler's  "  Kentucky,"  one 
or  two  sermons,  half-a-dozen  letters,  a  hundred  lines  of 
verse. 

Then,  thirdly,  for  feeling.  I  have  felt  disgusted  and 
sorrowful  at  the  perpetual  stream  of  cursing  and  blas- 
phemy which  has  saluted  my  ears  ever  since  I  have 
been  on  the  river ;  have  felt  a  loathing  of  the  cruelties 
and  horrible  tyranny  of  some  of  the  Southern  overseers  ; 
have  grieved  at  the  reckless  spirit  defying  everything 
we  have  been  taught  to  love  and  revere  as  sacred.  .  .  . 

But  I  have  had  joyous  feelings  also.  I  was  touched 
with  the  generosity  of  the  Mobile  people  to  myself,  and 
the  enthusiasm  with  which  they  entered  into  church 
matters.  .  .  .  There  were  half-a-dozen  men  in  Mobile 
who  put  aside  all  regard  to  the  plausible  and  expedient, 
and  asked  only  what  was  true  and  right.  One  of  these 
was  a  young  man,  born  in  Kentucky.  This  youth  was 
all  fire  and  enthusiasm  about  organizing  a  society,  sub- 
scribed $500,  and  when  I  left  told  me  my  coming  to 
Mobile  had  been  the  happiest  event  in  his  life.  Then 
there  was  an  older  man,  a  Virginian,  formerly  a  me- 


114  DIABY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

chanic,  very  intelligent ;  a  man  who  said  not  much,  but 
looked  immensities,  and  acted  with  a  steady  unflinching 
energy  which  carried  all  before  it.  Then  there  was  a 
Boston  man,  about  twenty-five  years  old,  lately  married 
to  a  Georgian.  He  was  much  respected  in  the  place, 
and  devoted  himself  to  the  cause  with  untiring  activity. 
There  was  another  young  man,  from  New  York,  whose 
wife  and  sister  had  been  members  of  Mr.  W.  \y are's  so- 
ciety. Another,  a  man  overrun  with  business,  told  me 
at  first  that  he  could  not  take  much  interest  in  the 
movement,  but  put  down  a  subscription  of  $500,  and 
afterwards  came  and  put  down  $500  more. 

FROM  DR.  WILLIAM  ELLERY  CHAINING  TO  J.  F.  C. 
Newport,  R.  I.,  February  19,  1836. 
My  dear  Sir,  —  I  received  your  letter  in  the  begin- 
ning of  the  summer  urging  me  to  write  for  your  period- 
ical. .  .  .  Your  appreciation  was  so  earnest,  and  my 
sympathy  with  you,  and  your  brethren  in  the  West,  so 
great,  that  I  could  not  but  do  something.  ...  I  often 
think  of  the  West  and  its  wants.  I  cannot  conceive  a 
nobler  field  for  Christian  efforts.  My  heart  is  with  you 
in  your  work,  and  had  I  power,  I  would  send  you  a  host 
of  fellow-laborers.  It  is  a  bad  sign  that  our  body  of 
Christians  take  no  greater  interest  in  spreading  truth 
and  righteousness.  I  live  in  hope  of  seeing  a  new  life 
in  our  ministers  and  churches ;  in  hope  of  partaking 
more  of  it  myself.  With  enlightened  and  fervent  min- 
isters, we  might  cover  the  country  with  churches  de- 
voted, not  to  the  propagation  of  a  fixed  system  and  of 
the  low  Christianity  now  in  fashion,  but  to  moral  and 
religious  progress.  I  look  to  the  young  for  something 
better  than  has  been  done,  and  it  cheers  me  to  find,  in 
some  who  are  starting,  a  holy  zeal  and  philanthropy, 
which  cannot  be  without  effect.  You  and  your  breth- 
ren in  the  West  may  act  on  the  young  here  by  hearti- 
ness  in  the   cause,  your   spirit   of   self-sacrifice,  your 


JOURNALS  AND  LETTERS.  115 

bolder  tone,  your  firmer  faith.  What  is  wanted  here  is 
moral  confidence  in  the  power  of  truth  and  Christianity ; 
thence  preaching  has  a  weakness,  wants  authority  and 
life.     May  you  do  better.     Your  sincere  friend, 

William  E.  Channing. 

to  margaret  fuller. 

Louisville,  March  28,  1836. 

I  have  been  to  Cincinnati  to  have  the  "  Messenger '' 
removed  to  Louisville.  In  a  week  or  so  we  shall  get 
out  a  number.  I  have  also  written  and  sent  off  a  long 
article  on  "  Kentucky  History  "  for  the  "  North  Amer- 
ican Review.'' 

I  sometimes  think  that  could  I  go  to  Boston,  and 
preach  in  some  free  church,  or  start  a  new  society,  on 
rather  different  principles,  speaking  more  to  conscience 
than  to  intellect,  more  to  intuitive  reason  than  to 
speculative  understanding,  making  morality  and  reli- 
gion one,  not  two  separate  matters,  I  might  find  a  num- 
ber who  would  hear  me  gladly.  But  better  would  it  be 
for  me  to  stay  here,  could  I  have  a  few  friends  who 
would  give  me  understanding  sympathy. 

When  I  was  in  Mobile,  I  saw  a  leathern  bag  hanging 
in  a  certain  place,  marked  thus  :  "  Letter-bag ;  Ship 
Sarah  sails  to-morrow  for  Liverpool."  I  went  home  in- 
stantly, and  wrote  a  letter  to  Thomas  Carlyle,  returned, 
and  dropped  it  in  the  bag,  and  am  now  waiting  the 
result.  Do  you  think  Tenfelsdrockh  will  take  any  notice 
of  it,  or  will  he  mistake  me  for  a  gigman  ?  ^ 

^  "  But  to  look  across  the  '  divine  salt  sea.'  A  letter  readied  me 
some  two  mouths  ago,  from  Mobile,  Alabama;  the  writer,  a  kind 
friend  of  mine,  signs  himself  James  Freeman  Clarke.  I  have  mislaid, 
not  lost,  his  letter,  and  do  not  at  present  know  his  permanent  address, 
for  he  seemed  to  be  only  on  a  visit  to  Mobile  ;  but  you,  doubtless,  do 
know  it.  Will  you  therefore  take,  or  even  find,  an  opportunity  to  tell 
this  good  friend  that  it  is  not  the  wreckage  of  the  Liverpool  ship  he 
wrote  by,  nor  insensibility  on  my  part,  that  prevents  his  hearing  direct 
from  me ;  that  I  see  and  love  him  in  this  letter,  and  hope  we  shall 


116  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 


TO  W.  H.  CHANNING. 

Cincinnati,  January  21,  1837. 

I  ouglit  to  have  written  to  you  long  ago,  as  two 
montlis  have  passed  since  I  reached  home.  The  first 
month  I  had  everything  to  do,  and  no  time  to  write ; 
the  last  month  I  have  had  nothing  to  do,  and  less  time, 
if  possible,  than  before.  For  you  know  that  when  we 
have  once  strenuously  set  about  doing  nothing,  we  go 
very  thoroughly  about  it,  and  will  not  even  pick  up  a 
pin,  if  we  can  well  help  it. 

I  have  been  in  Cincinnati  a  month,  detained  from 
week  to  week  by  the  ice.  I  came  up  to  spend  a  single 
week,  but  have  not  been  able  to  get  back.  The  river 
has  been  full  of  floating  ice.  One  would  think  this 
just  the  time  to  write  letters,  sermons,  etc. ;  but 
no  ;  when  once  out  of  the  traces  of  dail}^  duties  I  felt 
relieved  from  all  responsibility,  and  have  consequently 
been  gloriously  idle  for  a  month  back. 

Since  I  returned  from  the  East  I  have  been  much  im- 
pressed with  the  value  of  method  and  importance  of 
system,  and  have  gone  seriously  to  work  to  reform  my 
bad  habits  in  that  regard,  and  had  made  some  progress 
before  this  visit  to  Cincinnati  threw  me  back  again.  I 
had  a  book-case  made  by  a  carpenter,  with  pigeon-holes 
in  it,  and  have  taken  my  books,  which  before  lay  about 
the  tables,  bureau,  and  mantelpiece,  and  set  them  up  in 
a  formal  manner.  I  have  also  caught  my  letters,  which 
were  flying  about  in  the  most  desultory  manner,  and 
filed  and  labeled  them  in  little  packets.  I  have  served 
in  the  same  way  my  accounts  and  bills,  and  I  can  now 
look,  with  a  decent  triumph  and  modest  complacency,  at 
my  well-ordered  household.  I  feel  more  like  a  respon- 
sible man  than  before  this  arrangement.     The  books, 

meet  one  day  under  the  sun ;  shall  live  under  it,  at  any  rate,  with 
many  a  kind  thought  towards  one  another."  —  T.  Carlyle  to  R.  W. 
Emerson,  April  29,  1836. 


JOURNALS  AND  LETTERS.  117 

thus  arranged,  indicate  that  their  proprietor  is,  or  ought 
to  be,  a  man  of  action  and  influence  in  society.  '^  Why 
all  this  apparatus,  unless  you  do  something  ?  "  is  their 
tacit  exhortation.  .  .  . 

I  have  these  two  objects  when  I  enter  my  pulpit. 
First,  if  possible,  to  convey  some  clear  idea  and  definite 
instruction  to  the  minds  of  those  who  hear.  Second,  to 
leave  an  impression  of  a  religious  kind  upon  their 
hearts,  to  arouse  awe  and  reverence,  and  the  sleeping 
conscience,  and  the  dulled  affections,  and  to  create  the 
feeling  that  we  are  God's  children,  though  sinners,  and 
though  poor  and  needy,  heirs  of  an  everlasting  inherit- 
ance. 

TO  W.  H.  CHANGING. 

Louisville,  March  29,  1837. 
I  want  to  know  whether  you  are  going  to  accept  the 
call  which  the  Cincinnati  society,  as  I  understand,  have 
made  you  ?  For  if  not,  then  I  want  to  know  whether 
you  will  come  here  and  stay  with  me  a  few  months  at 
least,  and  get  under  way  the  ministry  at  large.  You 
will  find  no  one  to  interfere  with  you  here,  and  by 
God's  help,  it  may  be  done,  and  well  done.  I  am  al- 
most discouraged  about  it,  I  have  found  it  so  difficult  to 
get  any  one  to  undertake  it.  The  people  here  would 
support  it,  I  know,  if  it  was  once  fairly  started.  There 
is  a  fine  old  man  here,  who  has  always  passed  for  an  in- 
fidel,—  though  he  has  more  Christianity  in  him  than 
nine  tenths  of  the  so-called  professors  of  Christianity,  — 
who  says  he  will  help  us  heart  and  hand  in  this  thing. 
He  says  it  would  be  something  like  Jesus  Christ's 
Christianity,  and  he  will  go  in  for  that  any  time. 

TO  W.  H.  CHANXIXG. 

Louisville,  May  25,  1837. 
Only  think  how  much  we  could  do  if  we  were  together. 
My  heart  burns  within  me  as  I  ponder  it.     Under  no 
circumstances  would  you  come  out  here  ?     Would  you 


118  DIABY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

come  and  be  the  minister  to  the  society,  and  I  be  the 
minister  at  large  ?  or  Avould  you  be  minister  at  large 
here  for  one  year  ?  If  so,  I  would  engage  to  get  enough 
subscribed  to  support  you.  To  have  you  here,  we  liv- 
ing one  year  together  in  our  own  hired  house,  what  an 
effort  would  I  not  make ;  could  anything  prevent  our 
succeeding  ?  How  we  would  edit  the  "  Messenger," 
and  how  we  would  preach  consolation  to  the  broken- 
hearted !     Oh  heavens  !  shall  this  not  be  ? 

At  any  rate,  pray  give-  me  your  views  on  the  matter. 
I  have  a  Sunday-school  here  of  seventy  or  eighty  chil- 
dren, a  fine  nucleus  to  begin  with,  —  and  some  five  or 
six  true  Christians  who  would  desire  no  better  boon 
than  to  help  in  getting  up  such  a  City  Mission  here. 

WILLIAM    ELLERY    CHANGING   TO    J.    F.    C. 

Boston,  April  22,  1837. 

My  dear  Sir,  —  I  send  you  a  discourse,  or  address, 
which  I  have  lately  pronounced  on  temperance.  My 
object  was,  not  so  much  to  stir  up  those  already  inter- 
ested in  the  cause,  as  to  interest  others  by  showing  its 
wide  bearings  and  its  connection  with  all  efforts  for  car- 
rying forward  the  community. 

I  remember  your  visit  to  me  with  pleasure.  Your 
position  seems  to  me,  as  I  have  told  you,  very  impor- 
tant. One  of  your  great  aims  must  be  to  produce  a 
mutual  action  of  the  East  and  the  West.  We,  here, 
are  to  be  benefited  by  acting  on  the  AVest,  as  well  as  the 
West  on  us.  Our  contact  with  a  newer  people  must 
wake  us  up.  Every  minister  who  visits  you  will  come 
back  with  a  fresher  spirit,  and  will  spread  life  around 
him.  The  unhappiness  is,  that  all  parts  of  our  country 
are  to  be  planed  down  to  one  surface  by  the  infinite, 
all-pervading  intensity  of  the  passion  for  accumulation. 
The  West  will  become  as  mercenary  as  the  East.  What 
a  blessing  would  our  present  commercial  agony  be, 
would  it  only  free  us  from  the  accursed  thirst  for  un- 


JOURNALS  AND  LETTERS.  119 

bounded  gain.  What  is  the  strength  of  slavery  ?  The 
love  of  money.  This  makes  the  free  States  the  uphold- 
ers of  oppression.  Must  not  some  tremendous  social 
revolutions  give  the  race  a  new  start  ?  Can  we  go  on 
further  under  the  present  impulses  of  the  social  sys- 
tem ?  My  spirit  has  groaned  so  much  during  what  has 
been  called  our  prosperity  that  I  am  not  as  much 
troubled  as  most  by  our  present  adversity.  By  all  this 
I  mean  to  utter  no  despondence.  Oar  present  low,  self- 
ish, mercenary  activity  is  better  than  stagnation  of 
mind.  Our  present  stage  of  society  is  one  which  must 
be  passed  through.  A  true  civilization  lies  beyond  it. 
When  I  began  I  intended  to  write  but  two  or  three 
lines,  but  the  West  and  Society  are  topics  which  open 
the  fountain  of  thought,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  stop. 

A  blessing   on   your    labors.      Very   sincerely   your 
friend,  William  E.  Channing. 

TO    MR.    AND    MRS.    G.    T.    D. 

Louisville,  July  20,  1837. 
The  greatest  of  all  mysteries  is  the  way  in  w^hich 
men  live  in  the  midst  of  mysteries ;  buying,  selling, 
eating,  drinking,  without  having  their  heads  and  hearts 
crushed  by  the  weight  of  wonders  which  is  on  them. 
To  think  that  we,  who  have  a  little  while  ago  begun  to 
live,  and  in  a  little  while  hence  are  to  die,  should 
take  it  so  coolly,  and  should  look  on  these  two  marvel- 
ous events  (of  which,  to  be  sure,  the  first  is  infinitely 
the  most  marvelous)  as  we  look  upon  waking  in  the 
morning,  and  falling  asleep  at  night  !  Truly,  says  Solo- 
mon, "  God  has  put  the  world  in  men's  hearts  so  that 
no  one  finds  out  the  work  w^hich  he  maketh  from  the 
beginning  until  the  end.''  It  is  this  stupidity,  kindly 
sent  to  us,  which  keeps  us  from  running  mad  with  the 
strangeness  of  our  existence.  ...  Is  it  not  likely  that 
our  change  from  this  life  to  the  next  will  be  equally 
gradual,   and   perhaps  as  unconscious  ?     We  shall  find 


120  DIARY  AND  CORBESPONDENCE. 

ourselves  familiar  and  at  home  in  another  state,  before 
we  are  conscious  of  having  entered  it. 

TO    G.    T.    D. 

Newton,  September  1,  1837. 
I  arrived  here  two  days  since,  just  in  time  for  Com- 
mencement, after  a  long  and  tiresome  journey  by  the 
way  of  Cincinnati,  Columbus,  Zanesville,  Wheeling, 
Pittsburgh,  Meadville,  Erie,  Buffalo,  Niagara,  Eoches- 
ter,  Utica,  Albany,  New  York,  and  Providence.  .  .  . 
Yesterday  we  had  a  noble  discourse  by  Mr.  Emerson  on 
the  American  Scholar  .  .  .  Henry  Hedge  said  they  had 
not  had  so  sweet  a  song  sung  to  them  for  many  a  year. 
.  .  .  Have  you  seen  Dr.  Channing's  letter  to  H.  Clay  ? 
I  think  it  capital. 

TO    G.    T.    D. 

January  24,  1838. 
It  happened  that  last  night  we  discussed  Burr's  char- 
acter at  a  conversational  club,  which  we  have  here.  It  is 
a  very  interesting  club,  for  all  opinions  are  usually  repre- 
sented. We  have  old  Federalists  and  young  Democrats, 
stanch  Puritans  and  Southern  cavaliers,  the  sons  of  old 
England,  old  Virginia,  and  old  Kentucky,  merchants, 
doctors,  lawyers,  priests  of  every  church,  a  sprinkling 
of  literature  and  of  science.  On  the  whole  the  colonel 
was  severely  treated.  Some  of  our  number  knew  him 
when  in  the  West,  and  had  personal  anecdotes  to  re- 
late about  him. 

TO    R.    W.    EMERSON. 

Louisville,  April  30,  1838. 
I  received  your  prospectus  and  letter  with  much 
pleasure  this  morning.  I  found  I  could  have  disposed 
of  more  copies  of  the  "  Erench  E  evolution  "  than  were 
subscribed  for,  and  therefore  will  take  on  my  own 
responsibility  twelve  copies  of  the  "  Miscellaneous 
Writings."  .  .  . 


JOURNALS  AND  LETTERS.  121 

My  chief  companion  in  the  study  of  Carlyle  is  George 
Keats,  a  brother  of  the  poet.  .  .  .  He  read  "  Nature  " 
with  much  pleasure,  but  told  me  that  the  song,  "  Take, 
oh  take,"  which  you  ascribe  to  Shakspeare,  was  from 
"  Eollo,"  by  Fletcher.  .  .  .  "Sartor"  he  likes  much,  and 
says  that  often  when  debating  with  the  other  bank-direc- 
tors about  discounting,  etc.,  he  is  ]3uzzling  himself  to 
find  out  the  meaning  of  what  they  are  all  doing  by  the 
application  of  the  Sartor  philosophy,  to  tear  oft'  the  shows 
of  things,  and  see  their  essence.  But  he  has  quarreled 
with  the  "French  llevolution"  all  along  for  being^so 
Jacobinical ;  he  thinks  that  the  poor  aristocrats  do  not 
get  any  of  the  sympathy  which  all  others  receive,  and 
that  Carlyle  seems  even  to  enjoy  their  troubles.  .  .  . 

We  are  just  on  the  verge  of  May.  To-morrow  all  the 
school-girls  choose  their  May-queens,  and  I  shall  go 
into  the  woods,  and  read  Wordsworth's  "  Ode  to  May." 
Our  forests  are  full  of  beauty  and  perfume  and  song. 
You  never  saw  anything  like  them  in  New  England. 
But  in  the  pictures  of  the  "  Flight  into  Egypt "  you 
have  seen  the  same  vast  old  trunks,  and  cheerful  vistas, 
with  soft  turf  and  no  underbrush.  You  will  find  a 
Gaspar  in  every  piece  of  Kentucky  forest. 

TO    A.    H. 

May  19,  1838. 
Not  feeling  well,  I  have  been  spending  a  week  five 
miles  from  town,  with  a  family  who  have  the  true  Ken- 
tucky character.  I  think  the  genuine  Kentuckian  is 
the  model  of  what  our  national  character  will  one  day 
be.  He  has  the  enterprise,  coolness,  sagacity  of  the 
North,  and  the  warmth,  frankness,  and  generosity  of 
the  South.  ...  I  am  delighted  to  have  such  a  place  to 
visit  whenever  I  feel  tired  of  town. 

July  0,  1838. 

We  had  a  beautiful  celebration  on  the  Fourth.  Fifty 
little  girls  in  the  choir  sang  anthems  and  hymns  sweetly. 


122  BIABY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

The  church,  was  crowded  with  all  sects.  A  Methodist 
gentleman  spoke  to  the  children  at  my  request.  Within 
two  years  how  much  has  prejudice  been  softened  here  ! 
We  have  reason  to  thank  God  and  take  courage.  There 
were  three  hundred  children  present  that  day,  —  one 
hundred  of  our  own,  and  two  hundred  from  other 
schools.  They  had  a  collation  afterward.  I  have  some 
of  the  sweetest  children  in  the  world  in  my  society. 
We  walk  together  in  the  forests,  and  have  fine  times. 
About  eighty-five  attend  regularly  at  our  Sunday  school. 

October  13,  1838. 

...  A  sweet  little  girl,  the  i)et  lamb,  the  nursling 
of  a  family  of  thirteen  brothers  and  sisters,  died  on 
Tuesday.  A  man  was  sent  to  town  (they  live  in  the 
country)  to  ask  me  to  come  out  before  she  died.  I 
reached  the  house  half  an  hour  after  sunrise,  and  found 
her  lying  in  her  shroud.  She  was  hardly  seven  years 
old,  —  one  of  those  little  angels  of  purity  and  loveliness 
that  never  do  anything  wrong.  ...  I  stayed  the  day 
with  them,  and  the  next  day  read  the  funeral  service  of 
the  Episcopal  Church.  Her  mother  is  an  Episcopalian, 
but  her  own  minister  is  away.  The  child  was  buried, 
as  is  the  custom  in  the  country,  in  an  inclosure  on  the 
plantation.  It  has  been  quite  sickly  here,  though  not 
so  terribly  so  as  the  Eastern  papers  say.  I  am  just 
getting  over  a  relapse  into  which  I  fell  after  getting 
well  from  a  fever  which  kept  me  in  my  room  a  fort- 
night. 

Newton,  November  22,  1838. 

.  .  .  Since  my  arrival  I  have  had  very  pleasant  con- 
versations with  Dr.  Channing,  Mr.  Eipley,  Mr.  Emer- 
son, Mr.  Bartol,  F.  T.  Gray,  etc.  One  man  whom  I 
wished  much  to  see  I  happily  met  last  night  at  Dr.  Park- 
man's,  at  the  Wednesday  -  night  Club,  —  John  Quincy 
Adams.  No  marks  of  age  are  about  him.  His  voice  is 
firm,  clear,  and  calm,  his  eye  bright,  his  whole  manner 


JOURNALS  AND  LETTERS.  123 

quietly  self-possessed.  I  ventured  to  converse  with 
him  about  his  anti-slavery  speeches.  He  did  not  avoid 
the  subject,  but  spoke  temperately  of  the  opposition  he 
had  encountered,  as  one  who  feared  neither  "  the  light- 
ning flash  nor  the  all-dreaded  thunder-storm  "  of  hostile 
encounter  and  party  rage.  It  gratified  me  much  to  see 
him,  as  I  think  him  the  most  extraordinary  man  in  our 
nation  just  now. 

R.    W.    EMERSON    TO    J.    F.    C. 

Concord,  December  7,  1888. 
My  dear  Sir, — Here  are  the  verses.^     They  have 
pleased  some  of  my  friends,  and  so  may  please  some  of 
your  readers,  —  and  you  asked  me  in  the  spring  if  I 
had  not  somewhat  to  con  tribute  to  your  journal. 

I  remember  in  your  letter  you  mentioned  the  remark 
of  some  friend  of  yours  that  the  verses,  — 

"  Take,  oh  take  those  lips  away," 

were  not  Shakespeare's.  I  think  they  are.  Beaumont 
and  Fletcher^  nor  both  together,  were  ever,  I  think,  vis- 
ited by  such  a  starry  gleam  as  that  stanza.  I  know  it 
is  in  "  KoUo,"  but  it  is  in  "  Measure  for  Measure  "  also, 
and  I  remember  noticing  that  the  Malones  and  Ste- 
venses  and  critical  gentry  were  about  evenly  divided,  — 
these  for  Shakespeare,  and  those  for  B.  and  F.  But 
the  internal  evidence  is  all  for  one,  none  for  the  other. 
If  he  did  not  write  it,  they  did  not,  and  we  shall  have 
some  fourth  unknown  singer.  What  care  we  who  sung 
this  or  that !     It  is  we  at  last  who  sing. 

TO    A.    H. 

December  20,  1838. 
.  .  .  My  intercourse  with  Dr.  Channing  was  delight- 
ful.    He  took  a  most  fatherly  interest  in  me,  and  I 
could  have  laid  my  whole  heart  open  before  him,  so 
1  The  Humble-Bee. 


124  DIABY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

benign  and  tender  was  he.  And  then  his  conversation 
revolves  so  steadily  around  the  axis  of  mighty  truths, 
and  turns  always  upward,  lifting  us  all  along.  Hopes 
and  prayers  for  a  better  time,  anxious  inquiries  into  the 
spiritual  state  of  all  men  and  all  societies,  broad  and 
deep  surveys  of  the  questions  most  vital  to  human  in- 
terests, —  such  are  the  regular  themes  of  his  discourse. 
And  ever  and  anon  there  comes  an  unlooked-for  play- 
fulness into  his  manner,  which  is  unspeakably  graceful 
and  winning. 

As  for  Mr.  Emerson,  so  great  is  my  respect  for  the 
extraordinary  dignity  and  purity  of  his  character,  so 
profound  my  feeling  of  the  exquisite  keenness  of  his  in- 
tellect and  the  antique  charm  of  his  imagination,  that  I 
cannot  bear  the  criticisms  which  must  needs  seem  shal- 
low though  coming  from  good  and  true  men.  When 
we  are  permitted  to  meet  a  man  whose  life  is  holiness, 
whose  words  are  gems,  whose  character  is  of  the  purest 
type  of  heroism,  yet  of  childlike  simplicity,  —  shall  we 
stop  to  find  fault  with  the  shape  of  his  coat,  or  the 
coherence  of  his  opinions,  instead  of  gratefully  receiv- 
ing this  Heaven^s  gift  ?  Truly  there  are  many  in  these 
days  who  entertain  angels  unawares.  ...  I  talk  of 
giving  up  the  "  Messenger "  to  W.  H.  Channing,  Ed- 
ward Cranch,  and  C.  P.  Cranch,  to  be  published  once 
more  at  Cincinnati. 

TO    R.    W.    EMERSON. 

Louisville,  January  1,  1839. 
It  is  said  to  be  the  nature  of  suddenly  acquired  and 
unexpected  wealth  to  create  a  longing  for  more.  The 
poor  victim  of  prosperity,  being  suddenly  lifted  out  of 
all  his  old  habitual  ways,  cannot  form  at  once  new 
habits  and  be  contented.  He  wants  more  yet.  Such 
also  I  find  the  case  with  editors.  Had  you  not  given 
me  those  two  poems,  ^  I  should  probably  never  have 

1  Each  and  All  and  The  Humble-Bee. 


JOURNALS  AND  LETTERS.  125 

asked  you  for  anything  ;  but  now  I  wish  you  to  give 
me  two  more,  namely,  "  The  lihodora,"  and  the  hnes 
beginning,  — 

"  Good-bye,  proud  world !  I  'm  going  home." 

I  have  them  in  my  possession,  though  not  by  Margaret's 
fault ;  for  she  gave  them  to  me  accidentally  among 
other  papers.     But,  being  there,  may  I  print  them  ? 

I  forgot  to  ask  you,  when  I  was  in  Boston,  about  the 
last  two  volumes  of  Carlyle.  I  hope  they  will  appear 
before  long.  I  wish  to  subscribe  for  twelve  copies.  I 
find  I  can  dispose  of  them  with  perfect  ease.  It  is  too 
late  to  patronize  Carlyle. 

Margaret  allowed  me  to  read  an  address  upon  Edu- 
cation which  you  delivered  at  Providence.  I  wish  that 
I  might  have  it  to  publish  also. 

I  wish  you  more  than  a  happy  new  year,  —  an  active, 
progressive  year,  —  a  year  which  shall  open  to  us  vol- 
umes of  thought,  worlds  of  discovery  before  unimag- 
ined.  May  strength  of  body  and  soul  be  continued  to 
you,  patience  and  pity  for  short-sighted,  clamorous 
opposers,  good  counsel  and  helpfulness  for  honest  seek- 
ers and  sympathizers. 

TO    A.    H. 

January  22,  1839. 
William  Channing  strenuously  opposes  removing  the 
"  Messenger  "  to  Cincinnati.  He  says  that  if  I  am  really 
tired  and  need  relief,  they  will  take  it,  but  if  not,  I  had 
better  continue  it.  I  am  undecided.  I  do  not  shrink 
from  work.  I  love  it.  I  need  it.  The  more  the  better. 
But  I  think  with  you  that  it  would  be  better,  perhaps, 
to  give  myself  more  entirely  just  now  to  my  church. 
The  work  nearest  my  heart  is  preaching  the  gospel, 
publicly,  and  from  house  to  house.  One  of  these  days 
I  hope  to  know  how.  I  think  I  am  growing  every  year 
nearer  to  my  standard,  though  it  is  yet  afar  off. 


126  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 


TO    A.    H. 

February  3,  1839. 

What  should  you  think  of  the  expediency  of  my  leav- 
ing Louisville  ?  I  have  no  such  serious  purpose,  but  at 
times  I  am  "  exercised  in  mind"  about  the  propriety  of 
so  doing.  It  often  seems  to  me  as  if  some  one  else 
could  do  more  good  than  I  here,  and  I  do  more  good 
somewhere  else.  I  am  by  no  means  a  popular  preacher 
in  this  place,  nor  ever  shall  be.  ...  I  am  extremely 
anxious  in  this  matter  to  be  guided  solely  by  duty.  .  .  . 

William  Channing  urged  me  so  strongly  to  retain  the 
"  Western  Messenger  "  that  I  have  agreed  to  do  so  till 
the  end  of  the  sixth  number,  volume  vi.  Then  I  hope 
they  will  take  it  to  Cincinnati.  C.  P.  Cranch  stayed 
three  weeks  with  me  after  I  reached  home,  and  I  grew 
to  love  him  very  much,  and  he  me. 

K.    W.    EMERSON    TO    J.    F.    C. 

Concord,  February  27, 1839. 
I  am  very  sorry  to  have  made  you  wait  so  long  for  an 
answer  to  your  flattering  request  for  two  such  little 
poems.  You  are  quite  welcome  to  the  lines  to  "  The 
Bhodora ;  "  but  I  think  they  need  the  superscription 
(lines  on  being  asked,  "Whence  is  the  Flower  ?  ").  Of 
the  other  verses  I  send  you  a  corrected  copy,  but  I  won- 
der so  much  at  your  wishing  to  print  them  that  I  think 
you  must  read  them  once  again  with  your  critical  specta- 
cles, before  they  go  further.  They  were  written  sixteen 
years  ago,  when  I  kept  school  in  Boston  and  lived  in 
a  corner  of  Roxbury  called  Canterbury.  They  have  a 
slight  misanthropy,  —  a  shade  deeper  than  belongs  to 
me,  and,  as  it  seems  nowadays  I  am  a  philosopher  and 
am  grown  to  have  opinions,  I  think  they  must  have  an 
apologetic  date,  though  I  well  know  that  poetry  which 
needs  a  date  is  no  poetry,  and  so  you  will  wiselier  sup- 
press them.     I  heartily  wish  I  had  any  verses  which, 


JOURNALS  AND  LETTERS.  127 

with  a  clear  mind,  I  could  send  you  in  lieu  of  these 
juvenilities.  It  is  strange,  seeing  the  delight  we  take 
in  verses,  that  we  can  so  seldom  write  them,  and  are 
not  ashamed  to  lay  up  old  ones,  say  for  sixteen  years, 
instead  of  improvising  them  as  freely  as  the  wind  blows, 
whenever  we  and  our  brothers  are  attuned  to  music. 

In  regard  to  the  Providence  discourse,  I  have  no  copy 
of  it ;  but  I  will  get  the  manuscript  if  Margaret  Fuller 
has  it,  and  you  shall  have  it,  if  it  can  pass  muster. 

I  shall  certainly  avail  myself  of  the  good  order  you 
give  me  for  twelve  copies  of  the  Carlyle  '  Miscellanies ' 
so  soon  as  they  appear.  He  (T.  C.)  writes  in  excel- 
lent spirits  of  his  American  friends  and  readers.  .  .  . 
Your  sister  Sarah  was  kind  enough  to  carry  me,  the 
other  day,  to  see  some  pencil  sketches  done  by  Stewart 
Newton.  They  seemed  to  me  to  betray  the  richest  in- 
vention ;  so  rich  as  almost  to  say,  "  Why  draw  any  line, 
since  you  can  draw  all  ?  Genius  has  given  you  the 
freedom  of  the  universe ;  why,  then, .  come  within  any 
walls  ?  '^  And  this  seems  to  be  the  old  moral  which 
we  draw  from  our  fable,  read  it  how  or  where  we  will, 
that  we  cannot  make  one  good  stroke  until  we  can  make 
every  possible  stroke  ;  and  when  we  can  make  one, 
every  one  seems  superfluous. 

I  heartily  thank  you  for  the  good  wishes  you  send 
me  to  open  the  year,  and  I  say  them  back  again  to  you. 
Your  field  is  a  world,  and  all  men  are  your  spectators, 
and  all  men  must  respect  the  true  and  great-hearted 
service  you  render.  And  yet  it  is  not  spectator  or 
spectacle  that  concerns  either  you  or  me.  The  whole 
world  is  sick  of  that  very  ail,  —  of  being  seen  and  of 
seemliness.  It  belongs  to  the  brave  now  to  trust  them- 
selves infinitely,  and  to  sit  and  hearken  alone. 

I  am  glad  to  see  William  Channing  is  one  of  your 
coadjutors.  Mrs.  Jameson's  new  book  I  should  think 
would  bring  a  caravan  of  travelers,  aesthetic,  artistic, 
and  what  not,  up  your  mighty  streams,  or  along  the 


128  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

Lakes  to  Mackinaw.     As  I  read  I  almost  vowed  an  ex- 
ploration, but  I  doubt  if  I  ever  get  beyond  the  Hudson. 

TO    K.    W.    EMERSOX. 

Louisville,  March  11,  1839. 

I  received  to-day  your  kind  letter,  inclosing  the  lines, 
"  Good-bye,  proud  world,''  for  which  I  thank  you.  .  .  , 

I  am  passing  my  days  here  happily,  having  enough 
to  do,  and  being  able  to  do  it  naturally  and  without  the 
constraint  which  custom,  opinion  and  expectation  lay 
upon  the  preacher  in  New  England.  Preaching  is  to 
me  a  delightful  office,  and  especially  in  this,  that  I  al- 
ways seem  to  be  beginning  to  preach.  It  seems  to  me 
often  as  I  leave  the  church  as  if  neither  I  nor  any  one 
else  had  preached  since  the  days  of  the  Apostles,  and  that 
there  is  an  untrodden  domain  of  power  and  influence  in 
that  department,  when  we  can  find  the  word  which  will 
let  us  into  it.  There  are  three  modes  of  influencing 
men  :  through  books,  through  public  speaking,  and  by 
private  intercourse.  The  second  has  been  tame,  formal, 
and  dead,  and  yet,  methinks,  it  might  become  a  weapon 
of  irresistible  power.  I  have  dreams  and  imaginations 
of  what  it  may  one  day  accomplish,  but  whether  in  this 
generation  I  cannot  tell.  I  think  that  oratory  will  be 
carried  farther  in  this  land  than  it  ever  has  been  before, 
for  he  who  can  persuade  and  convince  multitudes  by  his 
speech  is  the  monarch  in  our  country.  But  I  am  talk- 
ing my  crude  thoughts  to  one  who  has  considered  the 
whole  matter. 

TO    A.    H. 

Cincinnati,  Ohio,  March  18,  1839. 
...  I  called  on  one  of  the  trustees,  and  stated  to  him 
frankly  my  views  and  feelings  about  the  expediency  of 
a  change  in  the  pastorate  of  the  society,  and  requested 
him  to  call  a  meeting  of  the  trustees  and  communicate 
those  views  to  them,  and  ask  them  to  tell  me  with  equal 
openness  their  own  opinion.     I  represented  to  him  that 


JOURNALS  AND  LETTERS.  129 

it  was  my  sincere  wish  to  remain  with  the  society,  and 
that  it  would  cost  me  a  pang  to  leave  them;  that  I. 
equally  believed  every  one  in  the  society  personally  at- 
tached to  myself.     But  this  mutual  attachment  did  not 
decide  the  question:    AVas  I  doing  as   much   good   as 
might  be  done  by  some  one  else  ?     This  last  was  what 
I  wanted  light  upon ;  on  the  answer  to  this  question  I 
was  willing  to  rest  the  other :  Should  I  remain  or  leave 
them  ?     If  I  was  doing  as  much  good  as  any  one  else 
could  do,  I  was  willing  to  stay ;  otherwise  I  felt  that  I 
ought  to  leave  them.     I  was  willing  to  let  the  personal 
question :  Could  I  do  more  good  elsewhere  ?  remain  a 
secondary  one,  and  other  points  also  of  a  like  nature. 
The  good  of  the  society  should  decide  whether  I  stayed 
or  left.    I  then  gave  my  reasons  for  thinking  that  some 
one  else  might  be  found  better  suited  than  I  to  advance 
its  interests.     These  were :  1.  The  society,  though  it 
had  certainly  increased,  and  was  increasing  under  my 
care,  yet  as  certainly  increased  but  slowly.     2.  Other 
men,  of  a  different  manner  and  turn  of  delivery,  who 
had  visited  the  city,  had  apparently  excited  a  greater 
interest,  and  the  nature  of  the  people  seemed  to  require 
a  man  of  a  different  manner.  .  .  . 

If  I  leave  Louisville  I  shall  wish  to  go  to  a  free  State. 
Every  day  I  become  more  of  an  abolitionist 

TO    A.    H. 

May  15,  18:39. 
.  .  We  had  a  delightful  time   at  Cincinnati.     JSIr. 
Farley,  W.  G.  Eliot,  and  myself  were  all  who  were  pres- 
ent to  conduct  the  exercises.     Mr.  Farley  preached  the 
sermon,  Eliot  gave  the  charge,  and  I  the  right  hand.    It 
was  on  Friday  night.  May  10th.     The  church  was  well 
filled,  and  they  all  said  it  was  the  most  interesting  or- 
dination 1  they  ever  attended.     But  so  they  always  say. 
Mr.  Farley  arrived  from  Xew  Orleans  on  the  Sunday 
1  The  ordination  of  William  Henry  Channiiiff. 


130  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

previous,  landed  at  Shippingport  at  half  past  ten,  took 
a  hack,  and  drove  direct  to  my  church.  I  was  in  the 
second  prayer.  He  came  up  into  the  pulpit,  and 
preached  for  me  all  day. 

I  was  in  Cincinnati  Wednesday,  Thursday,  and  Fri- 
day, and  besides  talking  much  with  William  H.  Chan- 
ning  and  William  G.  Eliot,  had  to  prepare  my  address 
for  Friday  night.  On  Wednesday  I  called  on  a  sick 
lady,  and  at  Mr.  Vaughan's,  where  Mr.  Farley  stayed ; 
at  Mrs.  Greene's  twice ;  visited  a  public  school  and  ex- 
amined it,  and  made  a  speech  to  the  children,  took  tea 
at  Mr.  Vaughan's  with  Farley,  Channing,  Perkins  and 
wife,  William  Greene,  and  Edward  Cranch,  and  then 
went  to  a  teachers'  meeting  with  them,  where  we  stayed 
talking  till  ten  p.  m.,  and  then  went  home  with  W.  H. 
C,  to  Mrs.  Stetson's,  where  we  talked  till  twelve. 
Thursday,  engaged  in  talking  with  Mr.  St.  John,  writ- 
ing my  "  Right  Hand,"  and  calling  at  three  places  to 
find  a  friend.  Mrs.  Stetson  had  a  dinner  party  of  four 
or  five.  After  dinner,  with  my  friend  S.  B.  Sumner, 
who  went  up  with  me  from  Louisville,  I  again  attended 
an  examination  of  the  city  schools;  then  four  of  us 
drove  in  Mrs.  Stetson's  carriage  into  the  beautiful  en- 
virons of  Cincinnati,  and  made  a  call ;  returning,  took 
tea  at  home  with  S.  B.  S.  and  Perkins ;  then  went  to 
an  inquiry  or  conversation  meeting  in  the  vestry  of  the 
church.  Afterwards  to  a  great  wedding  at  Dr.  Drake's, 
where  we  saw  a  buckeye  bowl,  holding  four  pails  full  of 
lemonade,  dipped  out  with  an  Alabama  gourd,  and  the 
bridegroom  and  bride  married  under  a  bower  of  buck- 
eye. 

I  have  forgotten  to  mention  our  going  to  Mr.  Long- 
worth's  splendid  garden,  and  seeing  his  varieties  of 
cactus  in  the  hot-house,  as  also  our  examining  a  fine 
church.  On  Friday  William  Eliot  arrived,  and  in  talk- 
ing and  preparing  for  the  night,  another  dinner  party  of 
friends,  and  more  calls,  we  consumed  the  day.  Satur- 
day morning  I  returned  home. 


JOUBNALS  AND  LETTERS.  131 


TO    A.    H. 

Louisville,  May  30,  1839. 
.  .  .  The  city  have  made  me  agent  of  the  public 
schools.  The  schools  have  a  vacation  through  August, 
but  till  then  I  should  not  wish  to  be  away,  as  I  shall 
have  to  learn  how  to  do  a  good  many  things.  They  pay 
me  a  salary  of  $400  a  year,  and  my  duties  are  to  over- 
look the  concerns  of  eight  schools.  I  accepted  the 
office  with  j)leasure,  as  I  thought  it  would  give  me  an 
opportunity  of  doing  good  to  the  schools,  and  also  be  of 
service  to  my  church  by  bringing  me  in  contact  with 
many  people  whom  I  should  not  otherwise  see.  It  was 
a  proof  of  the  liberality  of  the  place  that  my  religious 
opinions  were  no  barrier.  I  did  not  know  a  single  mem- 
ber of  the  city  council  personally,  and  yet  the  vote  was 
ten  to  three  in  my  favor. 

TO    A.    H. 

July  21, 1839. 
The  examinations  of  the  schools  continue  till  Satur- 
day, the  3d  day  of  August.  On  Monday  the  City  Coun- 
cil meets  to  choose  teachers.  This  4th  of  August  winds 
up  another  cycle  in  my  life,  and  makes  a  new  epoch. 
Six  years  ago,  on  the  4th  of  August,  I  landed  in  Louis- 
ville, a  stranger  all  forlorn,  to  begin  my  work,  and  see 
if  I  could  do  anything  in  the  world  for  its  good.  These 
six  years  have  changed  me  from  a  sentimental  dreamer 
into  a  practical  man.  Sentiment  has  been  quite  worked 
out  of  me,  imagination  toned  down  ;  I  am  but  a  poor, 
dull,  prosaic,  commonplace  person  now.  .  .  .  But  cour- 
age !  my  powers  are  better  balanced,  disciplined,  more 
manageable,  if  not  so  exuberant  as  formerly. 

July  25, 1839. 
My  time  is  so  full  that  I  am  running  to  and  fro  from 
morn  till  dewy  eve.     My  days  are  "  shingled  over,"  as 


132  DIARY  AND  COEBESFONDENCE. 

the  Kentiickian  says,  with  engagements,  each  overlap- 
ping the  other :  examining  schools ;  ditto  teachers  ; 
writing  out  lists  of  scholars  ;  visiting  sick  parishioners  ; 
writing  sermons ;  buying  medals  for  children's  prizes  ; 
putting  advertisements  in  the  paper  ;  answering  letters 
of  candidates  for  situations,  which  main  employments 
are  diversified  with  a  sprinkling  of  various  smaller  con- 
cerns. 

August  1,  1839. 

We  have  spent  this  week  in  examining  the  city 
schools,  and  to-day  we  distributed  some  rewards.  The 
girls  were  collected  in  a  large  room,  to  the  number  of 
two  or  three  hundred,  all  neatly  dressed,  with  sweet 
manners  and  bright  good  faces.  We  gave  them  twenty- 
five  silver  medals  and  some  books. 

More  work  remains  for  me  till  Saturday  night  about 
the  schools,  and  I  cannot  leave  till  Monday  or  Tuesday. 
I  must  vote  on  Monday,  like  a  good  citizen,  and  then  I 
think  I  shall  leave.  .  .  . 

This  week  has  been  so  hot,  and  I  have  had  so  much 
to  do,  that  I  am  fairly  worn  out.  It  has  been  the  hot- 
test weather  I  have  known  in  Kentucky.  The  corn  is 
parched  in  the  fields,  and  man's  blood  heated  into  fever 
in  his  veins.  I  shall  be  glad  to  escape  for  some  weeks 
from  this  burning  atmosphere  to  the  cooler  latitude  of 
Meadville. 

Half  of  my  society  have  gone  to  the  East. 

In  August,  1839,  Mr.  Clarke  was  married  to  Anna 
Huidekoper,  of  Meadville,  Pennsylvania.  A  few  weeks 
later  they  went  to  Louisville,  and  Mr.  Clarke  devoted 
the  winter  to  his  church  and  to  the  superintendence  of 
the  city  schools.  This  last  work  occupied  a  good  deal 
of  time.  During  the  winter,  he  finally  made  up  his 
mind  to  leave  Louisville.  He  remained,  however,  until 
the  middle  of  June.  Mrs.  Clarke  left  a  little  earlier  for 
Meadville. 


JOURNALS  AND  LETTERS.  133 


TO    A.    H.    C. 

Louisville,  May  29,  1840. 
...  I  have  made  up  my  mind  to  one  thing  conclu- 
sively, i.  e.,  not  to  commit  myself  hastily  to  any  new 
situation  or  work.  What  I  next  undertake,  I  wish  to 
continue  at  through  life.  ...  If  I  know  myself  I  wish 
to  be  useful,  and  whatever  I  do,  I  wish  preaching  al- 
ways to  be  my  chief  work.  I  love  my  profession,  see 
my  deficiencies,  see  my  capabilities,  and  expect  and 
intend  to  improve. 

TO    A.    H.    C. 

Newton,  Mass.,  September  25, 1840. 

...  I  find  social  life  in  a  precious  state  of  fermen- 
tation. New  ideas  are  flying,  high  and  low.  Every 
man,  as  Mr.  Emerson  remarked  to  me  yesterday,  carries 
a  revolution  in  his  waistcoat  pocket. 

The  prevailing  idea,  however,  just  now  seems  to  be 
of  a  community  in  which  all  persons  are  to  live  after 
the  fashion  of  the  Rapps  or  Owens.  Mr.  Eipley  appears 
fermenting  and  effervescing  to  a  high  degree  with  these 
new  ideas.  The  remarkable  thing  is  that  everybody  has 
a  distinct  idea,  plan,  or  project,  and  no  two  persons  can 
be  found  to  agree  in  any. 

Greenfield,  October  5,  1840. 

...  I  saw  Mr.  Bacon,  of  Louisville,  the  other  day. 
Among  other  things  he  said  this,  which  may  have  truth 
in  it :  "  The  society,  when  you  went  there,  had  no  reli- 
gious interest.  It  was  based  on  a  spirit  of  opposition, 
—  opposition  to  Orthodoxy.  Now  it  is  different.  Tliere 
is  religion  and  a  true  spirit  in  it.  You  think  you  have 
done  little  in  seven  years.  I  do  not  see  how  you  could 
possibly  do  more." 

There  are  many  large  parishes  vacant,  where  I  might 
settle,  and  it  would  be  pleasant  enough  to  have  leisure 


134  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

for  study,  but  I  think  I  could  do  more  good  in  a  city, 
and  am  better  suited  for  that  life.  .  .  .  AYhat  I  should 
like  best  would  be  a  church  founded  on  elective  affini- 
ties, —  not  on  the  purse  principle.  I  mean  a  society 
drawn  together  because  they  like  me  and  my  ideas.  To 
such  I  could  do  much  good. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE    CHURCH    OF    THE    DISCIPLES. 

[Dr.  Clarke's  Autobiography,  as  the  reader  has  seen,  breaks  ofip 
somewhat  abruptly.  The  reraaiuing'  part  of  this  memoir,  therefore, 
must  be  necessarily  made  up  from  other  materials  than  that  which  he 
had  himself  arranged.  We  have  used  his  diaries  and  journals,  and 
some  other  "table-books;"  his  printed  notes,  which  often  contain 
biographical  allusions ;  and  his  correspondence  with  friends.] 

The  brief  notes  in  his  diary  show  that  Mr.  Clarke 
left  Louisville  at  the  end  of  his  ministry  there,  on  the 
16th  of  June,  1840.  Some  of  the  last  of  these  little 
memoranda  show  the  range  of  his  life,  and  are  curious 
after  fifty  years.  "Professor  Espy  called."  This  is 
the  gentleman  who  engaged  general  attention,  at  that 
time,  by  his  scientific  study  of  the  weather.  "  Called 
upon  Mr.  Espy,  and  talked  with  him  upon  foreknow- 
ledge and  decrees."  "Talked  with  Espy.  Attended 
Espy's  lecture.  He  looks  in  the  face  like  Dr.  Hedge, 
and  has  his  logical  turn  of  mind." 

"  June  1.  Interview  at  the  '  Journal '  office  with  Dr. 
Yandell  and  Dr.  Wilder.  Gave  article  in  defense  of 
Dr.  Hall  to  George  D.  Prentice."  This  was  the  Mr. 
Prentice  celebrated  in  the  politics  of  the  day. 

For  the  rest  of  the  year  1840  he  had  no  regular  charge 
in  the  ministry,  and  he  spent  most  of  that  time  at 
Meadville.  The  diary  shows,  however,  that  he  preached 
almost  every  Sunday.  Among  other  places,  he  was  at 
Chicago,  where  he  helped  to  establish  the  first  Unita- 
rian church  in  that  town.  The  memoranda  in  the  diary 
are  :  "  Preached  in  a  Chicago  hotel  parlor."  "  Preached 
Sunday,  Tuesday,  and  Friday."     On  the  22d  of  August 


136  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

he  left  Meadville  for  Boston,  and  arrived  at  Newton 
on  the  17th  of  September,  making  several  stops  by  the 
way.  He  left  Boston  again  for  Meadville,  October  22d. 
"  Take  Shark,  the  Newfoundland  dog."  ^  The  route  is 
interesting.  He  went  from  Boston  to  New  York,  by 
Providence  and  steamboat  on  Long  Island  Sound ;  from 
New  York  to  Albany,  "  on  the  steamer ; "  to  Buffalo,  by 
rail  and  stage;  "by  steamer  from  Buffalo  to  Erie,  on 
the  26th,"  but  was  driven  back  by  a  storm  to  the  Can- 
ada shore.  Through  November  and  December  he  was 
at  Meadville,  and  was  occupied,  as  he  had  been  through 
the  autumn,  in  the  translation  of  "  Theodore."  On  the 
12th  of  January,  1841,  he  left  Meadville  again,  and 
arrived  in  Boston  on  the  18th. 

With  this  chapter,  therefore,  begins  the  history  of 
nearly  fifty  years  of  very  active  life.  That  life  is  sin- 
gularly varied,  seeing  that  it  is  the  life  of  a  man  who 
was,  through  the  whole  of  it,  the  minister  of  one  con- 
gregation in  one  city.  I  think  that  those  who  write 
the  lives  of  clergymen  usually  find  it  hard  to  interest 
their  readers  in  the  general  course  of  those  lives.  In 
truth,  they  are  sure  of  one  element  of  romance,  for 
there  is  in  them  hardly  anything  which  should  be  called 
routine.  A  working  minister  wakes  in  the  morning 
with  no  idea  what  adventure  he  is  to  try  before  the  day 
is  done.  To  him,  of  all  men,  "  the  unexpected  is  what 
happens."  But  it  is  as  difficult  to  describe  such  a  life 
as  it  is  to  describe  the  leaves  of  a  forest.  And  my  ex- 
perience of  the  biographies  of  ministers  does  not  en- 
courage me  in  any  attempt  to  make  real  to  the  reader 
the  course  of  a  week  of  Freeman  Clarke's  life,  and  far 
less  that  of  a  year.     Failing  this,  however,  I  beg  the 

^  Shark  proved  a  difficult  traveling'  companion.  The  passeng-ers 
naturally  objected  to  his  presence  inside  the  stag-e-coach,  and  Mr. 
Clarke  was  obliged  to  ride  outside,  in  a  bitterly  cold  snow-storm,  to 
keep  the  dog  company.  At  Buffalo  Shark  was  put  on  a  vessel  for 
Chicago. 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  DISCIPLES.  137 

reader  to  remember  that  here  is  a  man  who  had  conse- 
crated himself  to  do  the  duty  next  his  hand,  who  was 
on  the  lookout  for  that  duty,  and  always  did  it  as  well 
as  he  could,  "  the  moral  purpose  entirely  controlling 
such  mental  aptness  or  physical  habits  as  he  could 
bring  to  bear."  Thus  it  happens  that  his  life  for  nearly 
fifty  years  touches  every  important  movement  of  that 
time.  In  the  hands  of  a  master  it  might  be  made  the 
thread  of  the  history  of  America  for  half  a  century. 
Whatever  else  may  be  said  of  it,  it  does  not  lack  vari- 
ety. 

This  general  remark  is  specially  illustrated  in  such  a 
life  as  Mr.  Clarke  led  in  Boston  between  the  years  1841 
and  1849.  Whoever  deals  with  the  local  history  of  the 
to^vn  in  those  years  has  to  attempt  the  description  of  a 
certain  local  ferment,  involving  eager  expectation  and  a 
readiness  for  new  things,  which  certainly  does  not  char- 
acterize the  Boston  of  to-day,  and  did  not  characterize 
the  Boston  of  the  beginning  of  the  century.  The  anti- 
slavery  leaders  were  at  their  best ;  they  had  a  mountain 
to  cast  into  the  sea,  and  they  were  loyally  going  about 
that  business,  with  little  but  faith  to  sustain  them.  Re- 
formers of  every  school  had  broken  with  all  the  bonds 
which  the  church,  in  various  organizations,  had  con- 
trived for  their  repression.  In  speculation,  morals,  and 
the  philosophy  of  the  intellect,  as  in  the  consideration 
of  religion,  the  word  "  transcendental "  had  begun  to  be 
heard,  and  with  it  came  in  the  suspicion  that  the  higher 
law,  nay,  the  highest  law,  might  be  found  available  as 
an  everyday  direction.  Into  the  midst  of  the  enthusi- 
asms thus  aroused  came  the  prophecies  of  the  psychical 
experimenters  of  whatever  name,  —  each  one  generally 
adopting  a  new  one,  —  and  they  brought  their  fascinat- 
ing suggestion  that,  by  rightly  developing  the  fit  organs 
of  the  brain,  we  might  produce,  almost  to  order,  poetry 
better  than  Dante's  or  ]\[ilton's,  and  science  more  accu- 
rate than  Newton's  or  La  Place's.     In  a  word,  prophecy 


138  DIABY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

was  in  order,  —  not  to  say  in  fashion.  There  was  a 
general  sympathy  with  St.  Paul  and  George  Fox  and 
people  of  that  type,  who  did  not  travel  in  the  steps  of 
pharisees  or  of  priests.  Mr.  Brisbane,  by  an  admirably 
conducted  propaganda,  was  bringing  into  notice  Charles 
Fourier's  plans,  and  dear  Eobert  Owen,^  not  meaning  to 
be  forgotten,  came  from  England  with  his  own.  In 
Boston,  by  a  sort  of  natural  law,  the  prophets  of  new 
beliefs  or  new  suspicions  made  rendezvous.  When,  in 
1842,  the  friends  of  Bronson  Alcott  thought  to  give  him, 
and  indeed  themselves,  a  little  rest,  by  sending  him  to 
Europe  on  a  summer  outing,  as  he  landed  at  Liverpool 
he  met  some  correspondents,  who  with  him  instantly 
held  a  convention  at  a  school  which  had  been  named 
Alcott  Lodge  in  his  honor.  At  this  convention  it  was 
at  once  voted  that  the  United  States  of  America  was 
the  fittest  place  for  the  redemption  of  mankind  to  be- 
gin. And  so,  before  the  summer  was  over,  he  returned 
with  a  certain  Mr.  Lane  and  Mr.  Wright,  with  spirits 
far  more  excited  than  his  own,  to  undertake  that  re- 
demption. They  held  new  conventions,  and  established 
the  experiment  of  "  Consociation  "  ^  to  "  redeem  society 

1  In  1844  he  was  stone-deaf.  I  had  the  happy  good  fortune  in  my 
young  days  to  have  a  voice  so  loud  that  I  could  make  him  hear.  In 
the  winter  of  1844-45,  I  sat  next  him  at  a  boarding-house  table  in 
Washington,  and  used  to  interpret  to  him,  as  I  could,  the  voices  of  the 
time.  The  dear  saint  was  urging  Congress  to  vote  five  millions  for  a 
fair  trial  of  his  "  Social  Unions,"  and,  till  Congress  adjourned,  after 
the  death-struggle  of  the  annexation  of  Texas,  which  occupied  every 
thought  of  evei7  man  excepting  him,  he  really  supposed  that  this 
appropriation  could  be  made,  and  that,  at  seventy-eight  years  of  age, 
he  would  see  his  solution  of  social  evil  determined  on  for  mankind.  — 
E.  E.  H. 

•^  "  Fruitlands,"  as  the  colony  was  called,  is  well  described  by  Miss 
Alcott.  See  Silver  Pitchers,  p.  79.  It  was  before  the  days  of  kero- 
sene, and,  to  avoid  killing  whales  for  oil,  the  company  dispensed  with 
the  use  of  lamps.  You  ' '  conversed ' '  in  the  dark  on  a  winter  even- 
ing ;  and  when  you  went  to  bed,  you  carried  a  torch  of  twisted  news- 
paper. —  E.  E.  H. 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  DISCIPLES.  139 

from  the  institution  of  propert3\"  They  were  quite 
successful  in  this  effort,  so  far  as  the  property-holding 
members  of  their  own  number  are  to  be  regarded.  This 
*'  movement  "  was  a  little  later  in  time  than  the  associa- 
tions which  had  tried  other  social  experiments  at  Brook 
Farm,  at  Hopedale,  and  at  Florence,  not  to  mention 
places  outside  of  New  England. 

Meanwhile,  the  idolatry  of  the  letter  of  Scripture 
bore  legitimate  fruit  in  the  proclamation,  by  William 
Miller,  that  the  world  would  end  in  the  year  1843,  on  or 
about  the  20th  of  March.  The  mathematical  instinct 
of  New  England  especially  approved  of  the  additions 
and  subtractions  of  figures  which  were  found  in  the 
books  of  Daniel  and  the  Eevelation,  which,  beginning 
with  dates  in  Eollin's  History,  came  out  neatly,  by  the 
older  calendar,  at  the  beginning  of  1843.  The  Latter- 
Bay  Saints,  generally  known  as  Mormons,  also  had  an 
establishment  in  Boston,  where  the  Golden  Book  was 
expounded. 

In  more  decorous  quarters,  the  ferment  created  by 
the  Oxford  Movement  in  England  was  scarcely  less. 
The  most  striking  tracts  and  papers  in  the  English  con- 
troversy were  reprinted  in  America ;  and,  on  a  smaller 
scale,  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  here  repeated 
the  discussions,  and  tried  the  experiments  in  ritual, 
which  were  thrilling  the  Established  Church  of  Eng- 
land. 

There  was  hardly  one  of  these  interests  but  engaged 
Mr.  Clarke's  attention. 

A  good  illustration  of  what  Boston  was  may  be  found 
in  the  interest  taken  in  Dr.  James  Walker's  lectures  on 
natural  theology,  the  first  in  a  series  founded  by  i\Ir. 
John  Lowell,  Jr.  They  were  scholarly  and  thorough 
addresses,  such  as  he  might  have  delivered  to  an  ad- 
vanced class  in  a  divinity  school.  They  followed  the 
general  lines  of  Benjamin  Constant's  book  on  religion, 
with  elaborate  studies  of  the  views  of  different  modern 


140  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

philosophers.  To  hear  these  lectures,  twice  a  week, 
two  thousand  men  and  women  came  together,  so  as  to 
crowd  the  Odeon,  as  the  building  was  called  which  had 
been  the  Federal  Street  Theatre.  The  adult  population 
of  Boston  was  then  about  forty  thousand  people,  and 
the  character  of  the  town  is  shown  in  the  fact  that  one 
twentieth  part  of  them  went  thus  to  hear  this  study  of 
the  speculations  of  the  modern  world  on  the  being  of 

God. 

Under  an  impulse  given  by  Mr.  Samuel  A.  Eliot,  w^ho 
represented  Boston  in  Congress  a  few  years  later,  Bee- 
thoven's symphonies  were  performed  for  the  first  time 
in  Boston  in  the  same  hall ;  a  new  revelation  of  the 
power  of  music  to  most  of  those  who  ^vere  present. 
And  at  these  concerts  also,  the  hall  w^as  filled  to  its 
utmost  capacity. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  steam  or  horse  railw^ay 
communication  with  the  suburbs  was  imknown,  so  that 
the  audiences  were  made  up  almost  wholly  of  the  resi- 
dents of  the  town. 

Mr.  Emerson's  career  as  a  lecturer  was  just  begin- 
ning. It  is  hard  to  say  that  he  w^as  at  his  best  at  one 
period  of  his  life  more  than  at  another.  But  it  is  on 
record  that  Mr.  Emerson  said  that  "  the  usual  experi- 
ence is  "  that  a  man  thinks  his  best  thoughts  between 
thirty  and  forty.  "When  the  impulse  of  youth  is  on 
the  man  he  sees  most  clearly."  The  group  of  thinking 
people  who  made  the  centre  of  the  Church  of  the  Disci- 
ples were  just  the  people  who  were  sure  to  be  present 
in  Mr.  Emerson's  audiences. 

In  the  same  years,  or  a  little  later,  William  Henry 
Channing  spent  some  months  in  Boston,  and  called  to- 
gether a  sympathetic  religious  society.  "If  he  had 
told  us  to  take  any  bootblack  from  the  street  into  our 
homes,  and  clothe  him  in  purple  and  fine  linen,  we 
would  have  done  so,"  —  these  are  the  words  of  one  of 
his  admirers.      For  the  pure  and  simple  gift  of  elo 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  DISCIPLES.  141 

quence,  so  far  as  it  consists  in  seizing  the  right  word  at 
the  right  instant,  and  speaking  with  all  the  passion  of 
personal  conviction,  Mr.  Channing  had  no  rival  among 
the  men  around  him.  Between  him  and  Mr.  Clarke 
there  had  been  the  most  intimate  friendship,  since  the 
days  when  they  sat  side  by  side  in  the  Latin  School. 
They  were  associated  afterwards  in  writing  the  life  of 
their  friend  Margaret  Tuller.  They  always  called  one 
another  "  James  "  and  "  William." 

For  Wendell  Phillips  Mr.  Clarke  had  a  high  respect. 
And  here  may  be  as  fit  a  place  as  any  to  say  that, 
while  iVIr.  Phillips  was  a  raging  lion  in  denouncing 
iniquity  wherever  he  found  it,  among  his  friends  and 
in  his  family  he  was  the  most  gentle  and  affectionate 
of  men.i  In  the  nice  distinctions  of  the  anti-slavery 
forces,  it  happened  that  he  and  Mr.  Clarke  did  not  live 
under  the  same  tent.  But  it  would  be  idle  now  to  at- 
tempt to  explain  the  difference  between  the  "  old  organ- 
ization" and  the  "new  organization;"  between  the 
abolitionist  who  could  vote  and  the  abolitionist  who 
could  not  vote  ;  between  those  who  could  go  to  a  legis- 
lature and  those  who  thought  the  Constitution  was  a 
covenant  with  hell.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  in  such 
distinctions  ISIr.  Phillips  was  of  the  old  line,  pure  and 
simple,  regarded  all  political  parties  with  equal  scorn, 
and  had,  perhaps,  no  confidence  in  any  public  men. 
Mr.  Clarke,  on  the  other  hand,  was  a  free  lance  here  as 
he  was  everywhere.  He  was  therefore  ready  and  able 
to  give  the  strong  weight  of  his  personal  character  to 
the  enterprises  carried  out  by  such  men  as  Palfrey, 
Sumner,  and  Andrew. 

The  reader  has  seen  from  his  Autobiography  that  he 
had  the  counsel  and  sympathy  of  the  great  Unitarian 

1  Writing  of  ''Wendell,"  in  ISRO,  Dr.  Cl.arke  said:  "I  told  W. 
PhiUips  the  first  time  I  met  him  after  his  tirade  that  I  had  hen-tofore 
felt  a  little  neglected,  as  he  had  attacked  nearly  every  one  else  ;  now 
my  mind  was  relieved." 


142  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

leader,  Dr.  William  Ellery  Channing,  in  the  gathering 
of  the  Church  of  the  Disciples.  This  sympathy  showed 
itself  in  many  forms  after  the  church  was  established. 
The  Diary  shows  that  Mr.  Clarke  frequently  visited 
Dr.  Channing.  Dr.  Channing's  health  at  this  time  was 
such  that  he  seldom  preached.  But  his  counsels  were 
as  wise  as  ever,  and  his  views  of  the  situation  of 
America  in  matters  of  politics,  and  also  of  what  is 
called  religion,  were  prophetic.  Dr.  Hedge,  who  was 
as  intimate  with  Dr.  Channing  as  Mr.  Clarke  was,  once 
said  to  me,  of  such  visits  of  his  younger  friends  :  — 

"  I  often  met  Clarke  at  Dr.  Channing's  house.  He 
would  ask  us  both  to  dine  there,  and  we  would  meet 
at  dinner.  There  was  no  gossip  at  Dr.  Channing's ; 
the  conversation,  if  you  could  call  it  conversation,  w^as 
always  on  some  high  theme.  But  in  truth  it  was  not 
conversation ;  it  was  simply  a  monologue  by  Dr.  Chan- 
ning himself.  This,  or  something  about  it,  led  you  to 
feel  very  much  dissatisfied  with  yourself  when  you 
came  away.  He  did  not  pay  the  slightest  attention  to 
anything  you  said.  If  you  asked  a  question,  he  very 
probably  did  not  answer  it ;  he  went  on  talking  on  the 
thing  which  interested  him.  So  that  my  presence  there 
with  Clarke  did  not  add  much  to  my  knowledge  of 
Clarke  or  my  acquaintance  with  him.  But  I  think  Dr. 
Channing  respected  him  very  highly." 

Margaret  Fuller,  whom  the  reader  has  seen  in  Mr. 
Clarke's  notes  of  his  Cambridge  life,  had  begun  her 
series  of  "  Conversations  "  in  Boston.  The  description 
given  of  them  in  the  Life  of  her  by  Mr.  Clarke,  Mr.  W. 
H.  Channing,  and  Mr.  Emerson,  is  from  Channing's 
pen  and  her  own.  Her  conduct  of  these  classes,  as 
they  were  called  for  want  of  a  better  name,  was  ^'  ex- 
cellent," to  take  INIr.  Emerson's  phrase.  She  sat  at  one 
end  of  the  room,  and  the  body  of  visitors,  or  "  assist- 
ants," arranged  themselves  as  they  could,  so  that  they 
might  see  and  hear  her.    Nine  tenths  of  them  were  in 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  DISCIPLES.  143 

the  mood  of  people  paying  homage,  which,  indeed,  she 
well  deserved.  But  she  would  not  and  did  not  accept 
it.  The  skill,  the  tact,  with  which  she  threw  back  the 
ball  of  conversation,  so  as  to  start  this  listener  or  that, 
and  the  success  with  which  she  made  him  speak  and 
say  his  best,  were  clear  tokens  of  her  real  genius, 
and,  more  than  anything  she  said  herself,  showed 
that  she  was  the  mistress  of  the  company  and  of  the 
occasion. 

The  meetings  of  the  class  at  which  I  saw  her  most 
often,  and  where  Mr.  Clarke  met  her  also,  were  in  the 
parlors  of  Dr.  Nathaniel  Peabody's  house.  The  reader 
would  not  understand  all  the  scenery  of  the  drama 
which  Mr.  Clarke's  notes  describe,  unless  he  knew  what 
this  house  was.  In  the  determination  of  young  Boston 
to  keep  more  in  the  current  of  the  flow  of  German  and 
French  life,  Dr.  Peabody  and  his  daughter  Elizabeth 
opened  what  was  an  immense  convenience  for  these 
readers.  It  was  a  foreign  book-store  and  reading-room. 
To  the  working  purposes  of  this  institute  —  for  it  was 
such  —  they  gave  the  front  room  of  the  lower  story 
of  the  house  in  West  Street  which  was.  their  home. 
Here  the  "  Dial "  was  published.  Here  any  one  could 
subscribe  a  small  annual  fee,  and  carry  home  the  last 
German  or  French  review.  "  The  ^  Revue  des  Deux 
Mondes  '  is  a  liberal  education,"  said  one  of  the  bright 
girls  who  first  saw  it  there.  Here,  when  one  looked 
in  of  a  morning  or  afternoon,  he  met,  as  the  chance 
might  give,  Mr.  Allston  the  artist,  Mr.  Emerson,  ^Mr. 
Ripley,  Mr.  Hawthorne,  Mr.  Hedge,  —  not  then  Doc- 
tor, —  Mr.  Clarke,  or  the  three  Misses  Peabody,  —  one 
of  whom  became  Mrs.  Mann,  and  one  Mrs.  Hawthorne ; 
the  other  survives,  to  sympathize  still  with  every  phil- 
anthropic endeavor,  and  as  sure  as  she  was  then  that 
the  good  time  is  coming. 

To  one  who  remembers  how  very  "  English "  the 
training  of  young  Boston  had  been  till  now,  —  fed  on 


144  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

Blackwood,  Eraser,  and  the  English  quarterlies,  —  it 
will  be  seen  that  the  opening  of  this  modest  reading- 
room  for  books  printed  in  Erance  and  Germany,  with  a 
chance  to  meet  those  who  read  them  most,  was  an  en- 
largement of  the  means  of  education. 

This  will  be  as  good  a  place  as  any  to  tell  one  of  Mr. 
Clarke's  common-sense  repartees.  Some  high-flyer  of 
the  time  was  explaining  how  in  churches  the  Rig-Veda 
should  lie  by  the  Bible,  and  passages  from  both  should 
be  read  aloud.  "  In  what  language  will  you  read 
them  ? "  said  Mr.  Clarke.  "  In  English,  of  course." 
"  Then  you  understand  Sanskrit  ?  "  Not  he,  indeed ; 
it  was  as  much  as  ever  that  he  could  write  or  spell 
English.  And  Mr.  Clarke  had  to  explain  to  him,  what 
was  at  that  time  true,  but  what  he  did  not  know,  that 
none  of  the  Vedas  existed  in  the  English  language. 

But  first,  last,  and  always,  in  the  midst  of  all  such 
interests,  Mr.  Clarke  was  the  minister  of  the  Church  of 
the  Disciples,  On  one  or  two  occasions,  especially  on 
his  seventieth  birthday,  he  reviewed  its  history  ;  and 
some  extracts  from  such  reviews  will  make  the  greater 
part  of  this  chapter. 

The  letters  which  follow  these  extracts  need  but 
little  illustration.  It  is  quite  enough  to  say  that,  to 
the  more  staid  and  decorous  circles  of  the  little  town 
which  was  now  to  be  his  home,  the  sudden  arrival  and 
establishment  of  this  wide-awake  young  townsman,  who 
had  really  lived  on  the  other  side  of  the  Alleghanies, 
was  a  marvel  hardly  to  be  explained.  The  older 
churches  of  Boston  had  run  on,  in  a  tenor  not  much 
broken,  for  one  or  two  centuries.  The  population  of 
the  place  had  increased  by  slow  and  regular  stages  since 
the  Revolution,  and  occasionally  a  new  Congregational 
church  —  Liberal  or  Evangelical,  as  circumstances 
might  require  —  had  been  added  to  the  historical  cal- 
endar. But  now  a  company  of  people  came  together, 
and  a  wide-awake  young  minister  led  them,  who  showed 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  DISCIPLES.  145 

in  what  they  did,  rather  than  in  what  they  said,  that 
more  might  be  expected  of  a  church  than  churches 
were  in  the  habit  of  attempting.  What  was  not  unnat- 
ural was  that  young  people  of  spirit,  as  they  heard  of 
the  new  church,  tried  the  experiment  of  attending  its 
services.  ISTot  unnaturally  they  joined  the  society. 
The  new  minister,  who  was  anything  but  a  proselyte r, 
was  looked  upon,  therefore,  with  a  certain  grotesque 
jealousy  by  some  of  the  older  professional  brethren. 
"  He  is  nothing  but  a  thief  and  a  robber,"  was  the  dole- 
ful ejaculation  of  one  of  them,  half  in  joke  and  half  in 
earnest.  Mr.  Clarke  himself  never  quarreled  with  any- 
body, criticised  nobody's  methods,  but  was  satisfied  to 
organize  his  church  in  his  own  way. 

At  this  time,  after  half  a  century,  it  is  hard  to  be- 
lieve that  any  of  the  novelties  then  introduced  should 
have  challenged  much  attention,  and  harder  to  think 
that  the  criticism  should  ever  have  been  unkind.  First, 
second,  and  last,  the  new  church  stood  for  religion.  It 
was  to  be  made  up  of  people  who  wanted  more  life,  and 
came  to  God  for  it.  These  people  united  to  take  a 
part  in  worship  and  in  the  forms  by  which  worship 
was  conducted.  In  what  was  left  of  the  Puritan  ritual 
people  hardly  did  join,  except  as  a  Frenchman  ^'as- 
sists "  at  a  play.  The  minister  conducted  all  the  ser- 
vice but  that  of  song ;  a  choir  conducted  this.  The 
congregation  stood  in  prayer,  but  said  nothing,  from 
one  end  of  the  service  to  another.^  Once  more,  the 
people  of  the  new  church  wanted  to  know  each  other, 
and  expected  to  give  and  take,  to  and  from  each  other, 
the  best  results  of  religious  experience.  Meetings  on 
week-days,  less  formal  than  those  on  Sunday,  meet- 
ings for  conversation  and  for  work  in  charity,  were  not 
to  be   accidents   fastened  upon  the  movement  of  the 

1  In  the  theory  of  Congref^ationalism,  any  church  member  has  a 
rig-ht  to  speak  as  the  service  poos  on.  But  in  practice  this  has  scarcely 
been  done  since  the  first  generation  of  New  England. 


146  DIARY  AND  COBEESPONDENCE. 

churchj  but  an  integral  part  of  its  life.  The  business 
of  the  church,  indeed,  was  not  to  be  managed,  as  in  the 
methods  which  New  England  had  drifted  into,  by  a 
secular  committee  of  tax-payers.  All  was  to  be  done 
by  the  church  itself,  which  had  covenanted  together 
for  closer  intimacy  with  God. 

After  fifty  years,  all  this  might  now  be  said  of  almost 
any  church  in  New  England,  of  whatever  communion. 
Mr.  Clarke  and  the  Church  of  the  Disciples  would 
hardly  claim  that  they  brought  about  the  change  in 
church-life  which  has  come  in  those  years.  But  it  was 
their  good  fortune  to  be  in  the  front  rank  of  the  pio- 
neers. 

To  the  end  of  his  life,  he  tried  to  persuade  himself 
and  others  that  because  he  was  but  one  of  the  people 
w^ho  did  good  work  in  the  Church  of  the  Disciples,  he 
was  the  least  important  of  its  ministers.  He  would  say 
to  you,  in  perfectly  good  faith,  that  if  he  could  not  take 
the  Sunday  service,  Brother  Andrew  or  Brother  Win- 
slow  could  take  it,  and  he  tried  to  believe,  as  he  also 
wished  to  have  other  people  believe,  that  he  was  less 
essential  to  its  welfare  than,  in  most  churches,  a  well 
beloved  minister  is  thought  to  be.  Those  who  remem- 
ber him  in  the  Church  of  the  Disciples  know  just  how 
far  this  was  true,  and  just  how  far  it  was  not  true.  It 
was  true  in  theory.  But  in  practice  these  people  always 
wanted  to  hear  him  preach,  and  always  knew  that  they 
were  making  a  sacrifice  to  their  principles  when  they 
assented  to  the  substitution  of  another  in  his  pulpit. 
He  did  succeed  to  a  great  extent  in  breaking  up  the 
wretched  habit,  which  had  grown  up  in  Boston,  of  call- 
ing a  church  by  the  name  of  its  minister.  He  and  his 
succeeded  in  making  people  say  "The  Church  of  the 
Disciples "  instead  of  "  Mr.  Clarke's  church."  And 
although  the  Unitarians  had  given  names  to  churches 
before,  I  think  that  the  very  happy  selection  of  this 
name  had  much  to  do  with  the  frequency  with  which 
such  names  are  given  now. 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  DISCIPLES.  147 

The  new  church  began  without  any  choir  for  singing, 
and  it  has  never  had  any.  It  soon  introduced  a  hymn- 
book  compiled  by  Mr.  Clarke,  and  a  form  of  liturgic 
service  also  prepared  by  him,  both  of  which  are  still  in 
use.  It  will  not  escape  observation,  however,  that  if 
all  the  members  had  really  been  "  ministers  "  in  the 
same  sense,  as  in  theory  they  were,  the  preparation  of 
these  hand-books  would  not  have  been  thrown  upon  the 
same  person  who  was  regularly  conducting  the  Sunday 
service.  But  probably  this  means,  what  all  history 
seems  to  have  shown,  that  whether  a  church  can  or  can- 
not exist  without  an  overseer,  it  is  much  more  apt  to 
have  an  overseer  than  not ;  that  the  better  the  over- 
seer, the  better  the  church,  and  that  in  proportion  as 
the  members  of  the  church  are  willing  to  work  loyally 
in  the  Master's  service,  in  that  proportion  will  the  over- 
seer work  faithfully  and  well. 

I  have  said  above  that  most  of  what  were  considered 
novelties  in  1841  would  now  be  considered  matters  of 
course  in  most  of  the  churches  in  New  England.  The 
most  important  matter  in  which  the  example  of  the 
Church  of  the  Disciples  has  not  been  followed  is  the 
fundamental  principle.  In  that  church  the  manage- 
ment of  the  whole  enterprise  is  subject  to  the  vote 
of  the  majority  of  the  regular  worshipers,  and  is  not 
left,  as  in  most  New  England  congregations,  to  the 
vote  of  the  holders  of  the  church  property.  A  New 
England  lawyer  would  say  that  its  affairs  are  governed 
by  the  "  church,"  and  not  by  the  "  society."  Of  course, 
when  it  held  no  property  except  a  Bible  and  a  few 
hymn-books,  and  hired  a  hall  for  its  assemblies,  the 
distinction  was  wholly  unimportant.  So  soon  as  the 
members  subscribed  money  to  build  for  themselves  a 
meeting-house,  so  soon  the  question  came  in  again,  who 
was  to  say  how  this  meeting-house  was  to  be  used.  In 
point  of  fact,  however,  that  question,  so  ditiieult  to  an- 
swer in  theor}',  has  never  made  any  practical  difficulty 


148  DIAEY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

in  the  Church  of  the  Discii3les.  A  board  of  trustees 
holds  the  title  to  the  church,  and  gives  the  use  of  it  for 
such  purposes  as  are  agreed  upon  by  those  who  unite  in 
its  covenant. 

The  new  church  devoted  itself,  in  its  very  birth,  to 
all  such  enterprises  of  public  spirit  as  came  within  the 
wide  range  of  the  sympathies  of  its  members.  The 
most  resolute  and  loyal  of  its  members  regarded  the 
engagement  to  its  Wednesday  evening  meetings  as  tak- 
ing precedence  of  all  others.  At  these  meetings  there 
was  familiar  talk  on  every  subject  of  large  and  vital 
interest.  It  might  be  speculative  philosophy  ;  it  might 
be  some  important  turn  in  the  politics  of  the  nation, 
the  state,  or  the  city  ;  it  might  be  some  necessary  re- 
form in  morals  ;  it  might  be  some  detail  in  the  plans 
of  the  church  ;  it  might  be  some  new  book  of  stimulat- 
ing interest ;  it  might  be  some  sudden  exigency  requir- 
ing prompt,  vigorous  action.  Nothing  was  out  of  place, 
if  it  were  only  large,  and  especially  if  it  involved  some 
duty.  From  such  meetings  came  the  support  of  the 
work  of  John  Augustus,  the  counselor  of  prisoners. 
From  another  set  of  inquiries  came  the  establishment 
of  the  Temporary  Home  for  Children;  from  another, 
the  Home  for  Aged  Colored  Women ;  from  another,  the 
Children's  Aid  Society.  Where  a  circle  of  intelligent 
and  ready  men  and  women  met  with  such  regularity,  it 
was  natural  to  bring  to  their  meetings  any  one  who 
had  a  story  of  public  interest  to  tell,  or  a  cause  to  ad- 
vocate which  needed  help.  A  runaway  slave,  a  Euro- 
pean exile,  the  apostle  of  a  new  movement,  all  were 
welcome  to  the  friendly  hospitalities  of  the  Church  of 
the  Disciples.  It  earned  for  itself  the  honor,  for  which 
every  church  should  strive,  of  being  a  church  for  week- 
days, quite  as  much  as  it  was  for  Sundays. 

It  should  be  observed,  however,  in  all  studies  of  its 
constitution,  that  the  Church  of  the  Disciples  repre- 
sented to  its  founder  the  idea  of  a  "  free  church,"  first, 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  DISCIPLES.  149 

last,  and  always.  By  this  lie  meant  a  cliurcli  in  which 
one  person  felt  just  as  free  to  come  in  and  unite  in  the 
service  as  another.  He  imagined  to  himself  all  the 
people  who  came  into  it  on  Sunday  as  coming  into  it  as 
a  man  goes  upon  Boston  Common,  with  no  thought  that 
one  person  or  another  possesses  it,  this  side  of  the  good 
God.  All  His  children  have  a  right  there.  In  a  letter 
written  sixteen  years  after  the  church  was  founded, 
when  some  difficulties  of  administration  annoyed  the 
financial  committee,  Mr.  Clarke  said  to  them,  "  If  it 
should  be  thought  best  to  dissolve  the  society,  I  should 
still  feel  that  its  past  existence  had  not  been  useless. 
If  the  experiment  of  a  free  church  fails  in  our  hands,  it 
may  succeed  with  others." 

With  such  hopes,  which  proved  to  have  good  founda- 
tions, the  church  was  gathered.^  The  congregation  soon 
determined  to  hire  Amory  Hall  for  their  regular  Sun- 
day service,  and  the  first  service  there  was  held  on 
February  28,  1841.  This  was  a  convenient  and  pretty 
hall  which  had  come  into  being  to  meet  the  demand  for 
lecture  halls  created  by  the  "  lyceum  "  system.  It  was 
up  two  flights  of  stairs  above  the  shops  on  the  northern 

1  The  memoranda  in  Mr.  Clarke's  diary  for  1841  relating  to  the 
church  are  these  :  — 

January  24.     Preached  at  Waltham. 

January  27.     Eng-ag'ed  the  Swedenborg-ian  church. 

January  28.  Preached  lecture  for  Gray.  [This  means  the  regular 
"Thursday  lecture,"  in  which  he  took  the  turn  of  Rev.  Frederick  T. 
Gray.]     Anti-slavery  meeting'. 

January  31.     [Sunday.]   Preached  in  the  Swedenhorgian  chapel. 

February  4.  Preached  for  Waterston.  [Rev.  R.  C  Waterston.  This 
was  probably  also  the  "  Thursday  lecture."] 

February  7.  Preached  in  the  evening  in  Swedenhorgian  chapel. 
[On  this  Sunday  and  the  Sunday  before  he  preached  in  the  morning  at 
Waltham.] 

Saturday  evening,  February  13.  Preached  in  Phillips  Place  Chapel, 
on  "  The  Church." 

February  23.     Decided  on  Amory  Hall. 

February  28.     Preached  for  the  first  time  in  Amory  Hall. 

March  21.     Introduced  new  order  of  services. 


150  DIARY  AND  COREESPONDENCE. 

corner  of  Washington  and  West  streets.  The  Church 
of  the  Disciples  has  since  occupied  larger  and  more  con- 
venient Sunday  homes.  But  there  are  still  living  those 
who  look  back  with  peculiar  tenderness  to  Amory  Hall, 
and  even  to  the  long  staircases,  so  distinct  are  their 
memories  of  the  light  and  life  and  cheerfulness  of  the 
service  which  was  rendered  there. 

From  the  28th  of  February,  1841,  to  the  6th  of  July, 
1849,  Mr.  Clarke  was  engaged  in  the  regular  duties  of 
the  minister  of  the  Church  of  the  Disciples.  Not  long 
after  the  church  was  established,  one  of  its  members, 
George  G.  Channing,  a  brother  of  Dr.  W.  E.  Channing, 
formed  the  idea  of  publishing  a  weekly  paj)er  which 
should  present  the  religious  views  which  were  the  life 
of  the  church,  and  should  also  keep  constantly  before 
the  public  the  need  of  applying  Christianity  to  the  evils 
of  society.  In  Mr.  Clarke's  diary  for  December  5, 1842, 
he  speaks  of  writing  the  prospectus  for  this  paper,  and 
while  it  continued  to  be  published  he  contributed  to 
almost  every  number ;  sometimes  having  several  arti- 
cles in  one  number.  On  the  20th  of  November,  1847, 
he  assumed  full  editorial  care.  It  was,  however,  con- 
tinued only  one  year  longer,  when  it  Avas  merged  in 
the  "Christian  Eegister."  The  union  shows  that  there 
was  no  longer  even  a  nominal  difference  between  the 
Church  of  the  Disciples  and  the  other  churches.  When, 
in  1849,  Dr.  Bellows  established  the  "Christian  In- 
quirer," in  New  York,  he  at  once  solicited  and  obtained 
Mr.  Clarke's  cooperation  in  the  conduct  of  that  paper. 
Mr.  Clarke  admitted,  and  the  supporters  of  the  paper 
admitted,  that  there  were  truths  as  well  as  errors  in 
"  Orthodoxy."  The  Church  of  the  Disciples  increased 
in  numbers.  Its  week-day  meetings  were  recognized  as 
having  an  interest  which  does  not  attach  to  the  func- 
tional conferences  of  ecclesiastical  bodies.  They  were 
recognized  among  the  living  social  forces  of  the  com- 
munity.    His  visiting  list  of  an  early  part  of  the  year 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  DISCIPLES.  151 

1843  gives  the  names  of  members  of  one  hundred  and 
forty-four  different  families  in  the  church. 

The  laws  of  elective  affinities  and  natural  selection 
did  their  work  in  the  building  up  of  the  church.  Other 
churches  in  Boston  still  represented,  to  a  certain  extent, 
localities  in  the  town.  Thus  the  Second  and  North 
Churches  were  largely  churches  of  "North  Enders." 
The  South  Congregational,  Fine  Street,  and  Hollis 
Street  Churches  were  largely  churches  of  "  South  End- 
ers," and  something  of  the  sort  might  be  said  of  every 
church  in  Boston,  if  it  were  of  a  large  communion.  But 
the  Church  of  the  Disciples  did  not  represent  one  street 
or  one  ward.  It  represented  persons  who  had  been 
brought  together  by  the  simplicity,  the  boldness,  and 
the  fervor  of  the  religious  doctrine  proclaimed  in  that 
pulpit  and  embodied  in  the  constitution  of  the  society. 
Indeed,  at  one  time  so  many  of  the  more  active  members 
of  the  church  drove  in  from  the  suburban  towns  that  it 
was  called  in  joke  "  The  Church  of  the  Carryalls." 

Four  years  after  the  church  was  gathered,  a  few  of  its 
most  hearty  members  were  greatly  distressed  by  one  of 
Mr.  Clarke's  determinations,  and  felt  compelled  to  with- 
draw from  the  company  of  their  friends.  Theodore 
Parker,  at  the  ordination  of  Mr.  Shackford,  in  South 
Boston,  had  preached  a  sermon  which  might  noAv  be 
called  celebrated,  if  that  word  could  apply  to  any  ser- 
mon, on  "  The  Transient  and  Permanent  in  Christian- 
ity." That  sermon,  indeed,  marks  the  beginning  of  his 
general  reputation  as  preacher  and  reformer.  The  con- 
servative Unitarians  were  distressed  to  the  last  degree 
that  an  utterance  so  radical  should  be  heard  in  one  of 
their  pulpits.  Fortunately  for  them,  they  had,  as  they 
have,  no  machinery  of  whatever  sort  by  which  they 
could  drive  Mr.  Parker  out  of  their  ministry.  He  was 
the  minister  of  an  independent  Congregational  cliurch, 
and  as  long  as  that  church  chose  to  retain  him  and  he 
chose  to  be  retained,  no  power  but  death  could  remove 


152  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

him  from  his  charge.  But  the  Unitarian  leaders  of  that 
day  in  Boston  tried  the  poor  experiment  of  making  him 
uncomfortable.  They  could  decline  to  exchange  pulpits 
with  him,  for  instance  ;  they  could  put  him  under  the 
same  ban,  such  as  it  was,  that  "  Orthodoxy "  had  put 
them  under,  for  the  better  part  of  a  generation.  Mr. 
Clarke  had  no  desire  to  join  in  any  excommunication, 
and  on  the  26th  day  of  January,  1845,  he  exchanged 
with  Mr.  Parker.^  It  was  on  this  occasion  that,  after 
much  sorrowful  and  friendly  discussion,  fifteen  valued 
members  of  the  Church  of  the  Disciples  withdrew,  and 
with  their  friends  founded  another  Unitarian  church. 
The  transaction  attracted  attention  even  outside  the 
little  fellowship  of  the  Unitarian  churches,  and  it  had 
its  fair  share  in  introducing  Mr.  Clarke  to  that  wide 
acquaintance  which  to  the  end  of  his  life  he  enjoyed 
among  the  courageous  men  of  all  communions. 

Many  years  after,  in  writing  to  a  friend  who  had 
asked  him  for  the  history  of  this  event,  he  says  at  the 
close  of  his  letter  :  ''  I  have  given  you  this  account  be- 
cause you  asked  for  it,  not  because  I  care  to  recall  these 
scenes.  I  am  happy  to  say  that  those  who  left  our 
church,  and  those  who  remained,  being  equally  con- 
vinced of  the  entire  conscientiousness  of  the  opposite 
party,  never  departed  from  friendly  relations  with  each 
other.  We  remained  friends  after  the  separation,  as 
we  were  before.'^  We  would  add  that  these  seceders 
from  the  Church  of  the  Disciples  were  so  certain  of 
Mr.  Clarke's  continued  interest  in  their  welfare,  that 
some  of  them  came  to  consult  him  about  the  neces- 
sary arrangements  for  their  new  church. 

There  was  always  an  effort  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Clarke, 

1  The  entry  in  the  diary  is,  ' '  Black  Sunday.  T.  Parker  preached 
morning  and  evening.  I  went  to  West  Roxbury  to  preach."  And  the 
next  day's  entry  is,  "  January  27.  Ministers'  meeting  at  Bartol's. 
Subject,  expulsion  of  Theodore  Parker."  Of  January  30,  the  memo- 
randum is,  "Attended  Anti-Texas  Convention." 


THE  CHUECII  OF  THE  DISCIPLES.  153 

and  of  the  members  of  the  church,  to  show  their  readi- 
ness to  hold  fellowship  with  churches  outside  the  Uni- 
tarian body.  Kev.  Edward  N.  Kirk,  then  the  most 
distinguished  of  the  "  Orthodox  "  ministers  in  Boston, 
preached  in  the  church,  though  he  would  not  have  re- 
ceived Mr.  Clarke  into  his  pulpit.  And  more  than  once 
Mr.  Clarke  baptized  persons  by  immersion,  when  their 
conscientious  scruples  required  such  a  service. 

The  members  who  withdrew  from  the  church  did  so 
on  the  15tli  of  February,  1845,  and  it  is  interesting  to 
observe  that  at  the  next  annual  meeting  of  the  Uni- 
tarian Association,  Mr.  Clarke  was  chosen  one  of  the 
directors  of  that  body.  The  Unitarian  Association  is 
the  Home  and  Foreign  Missionary  Board  of  the  whole 
Unitarian  body.  For  the  Unitarian  communion,  this 
choice  of  Mr.  Clarke  was  most  fortunate.  By  his  resi- 
dence in  the  West  he  had  become  well  acquainted  with 
their  best  missionary  ground,  and  the  largeness  of  his 
view  and  the  courage  of  his  convictions  were  such  as  to 
lead  him  always  to  a  vigorous  policy.  "We  shall  see 
that  at  a  later  time  he  became  the  active  executive  of 
the  Association. 

He  had  been  chosen  chaplain  of  the  Senate  of  Mas- 
sachusetts in  1844.  This  choice  may  probably  be  re- 
ferred to  the  recognition,  at  so  early  a  j)eriod,  of  his 
advanced  anti-slavery  views. 

Another  chapter  of  this  book  is  devoted  to  his  ener- 
getic work  in  the  anti-slavery  cause.  This  was  work  in 
which  he  had  the  sympathy  of  the  larger  part  of  his 
church.  It  seems  more  convenient  to  place  in  that 
chapter  such  references  as  we  can  make  to  it.  The 
reader  must  remember  that  the  great  battle  had  now 
fairly  begun.  The  annexation  of  Texas  was  first  hinted 
at,  then  timidly  suggested,  then  assumed  as  the  policy 
of  the  Democratic  party,  in  the  face,  all  along,  of  the 
anti-slavery  feelings  of  the  Noi-thern  States.  It  jiroved 
impossible  to  carry  a  treaty  of  annexation  through  the 


154  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

Senate  of  the  United  States  ;  and  instead  of  this,  joint 
resolutions  for  that  purpose  were  driven  through  both 
houses  of  Congress,  the  necessary  votes  for  this,  at  the 
last  struggle,  being  bought  by  the  persons  interested  in 
Texan  bonds. ^  This  Texan  question  gave  a  well-defined 
issue,  which  filled  a  much  larger  space  in  the  public 
eye  than  the  question  of  the  emancipation  of  slaves  in 
the  District  of  Columbia,  with  which  the  Abolitionists 
had  been  obliged  to  satisfy  themselves  before. 

Mr.  Clarke  had  learned  his  anti-slavery  lesson  at 
Louisville,  as  the  reader  has  seen.  He  intimates  that 
it  was  easier  to  take  advanced  anti-slavery  views  in 
Louisville  than  in  the  Boston  of  those  days.^  Boston 
could  say,  in  a  sense  in  which  Louisville  could  not  say 
it,  that  slavery  was  none  of  her  business.  In  point  of 
fact,  the  Boston  manufacturers  who  used  Southern  cot- 
ton, and  the  Boston  merchants  who  directed  the  coast- 
ing trade  with  the  South,  did  not  want  to  irritate  their 
Southern  correspondents.  In  political  combinations, 
also,  the  Whig  party  of  that  day  was  still  posing  as 
a  national  party.  Its  leaders  were  very  eager  to  keep 
in  alliance  the  one  or  two  Southern  States  which  still 
voted  with  them.  Such  eagerness  gave  great  coldness 
to  their  anti-slavery  expressions. 

Mr.  Clarke,  and  all  the  active  members  of  the  Church 
of  the  Disciples,  entered  joyfully  and  fearlessly  into 
the  discussion  in  every  areng,  of  the  great  national 
question  thus  involved. 

In  1847  he  completed  what  was  a  labor  of  love  for 

1  The  joint  resolution  for  this  purjjose  passed  the  United  States 
Senate,  March  .3,  1845. 

2  Mr.  Clarke  refers  the  change  of  opinion  in  Kentucky  to  the  effect 
wrought  by  the  growth  of  cotton.  "  I  was  at  Henry  Clay's  home  at 
Ashland  about  the  year  1837.  He  had  been  over  his  estate  on  horse- 
back, and  returned  tired,  and  lay  down  on  the  sofa,  and  talked  to  me 
about  slavery.  He  said  he  had  hoped  to  see  the  end  of  it,  at  least  in 
Kentucky,  but  cotton  had  become  so  profitable  that  the  Southern 
States  would  not  give  it  up." 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  DISCIPLES.  155 

him,  the  history  of  his  grandfather  Hull's  connection 
with  the  campaign  of  1812.  Since  the  publication  of 
that  book,  it  may  be  safely  said  that  General  Hull's 
character  has  been  wholly  redeemed  from  the  infamous 
charges  made  upon  him  by  the  politicians  in  the  neces- 
sities of  partisan  warfare. 

The  reader  may  now  turn  to  a  few  passages  from 
his  letters  of  these  eight  years,  which  will,  I  think, 
require  no  farther  illustration. 

TO    HIS    SISTER. 

Meadville,  January  7,  1841. 

...  I  agree  with  those  who  think  it  a  good  time  to 
form  a  new  congregation  in  Boston.  If  a  dozen  men 
can  be  found,  to  hire  a  hall  for  three  months,  I  will  give 
my  services  for  that  time  without  compensation. 

My  object  would  be,  not  to  form  a  congregation  of 
Unitarians,  but  a  church  of  Christ.  The  church  — 
church  union,  church  action,  church  edification  —  would 
be  the  main  thing.  Churches  have  usually  been  built 
on  coincidence  of  opinion ;  those  who  thought  alike 
on  doctrinal  Christianity  have  united  together.  This 
church  should  be  built  on  coincidence  of  practical  pur- 
pose. Those  who  intend  to  do  the  same  things  would 
unite  in  it.  Our  desire  would  be  to  help  each  other  to 
deep  and  distinct  convictions  of  timth  by  preaching, 
Bible  classes,  conversational  meetings,  Sunday-schools, 
etc. ;  to  warm  each  other's  hearts,  and  fill  them  with 
love  by  social  religious  meetings,  prayer  meetings,  and 
the  Lord's.  Supper ;  and  finally,  to  help  one  another  to 
habits  of  active  goodness,  for  which  purpose  we  would 
agree,  as  a  church,  to  devote  thought,  time,  and  money 
to  the  relief  of  the  poor,  to  doing  away  with  social 
abuses,  to  spreading  around  us  the  light  and  joy  of  re- 
ligion. AVe  may  have  committees  on  temperance,  pris- 
ons, the  poor,  the  slaves,  etc.,  which  from  time  to  time 
shall  report  to  the  whole  church.     Believing  that  Jesus 


156  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

intended  to  found  sucli  a  church  as  this,  we  take  him 
for  our  Head ;  he  is  our  Master,  Teacher,  and  Saviour ; 
our  Prophet,  Priest,  and  King.  All  who  join  the 
church  express  this  faith  in  Jesus.  Those  who  unite 
with  us  join  with  the  purpose  and  pledge  of  aiding  in 
the  work  which  the  church  does;  and  they  dedicate 
themselves,  with  all  the  faculties  of  mind  and  body,  to 
the  service  of  Jesus  Christ.  .  .  .  This  is  no  new  idea 
with  me.  I  have  been  studying  and  preparing  for  it 
for  years,  and  have  full  faith  that  it  can  be  effected. 

TO    A.    H.    C. 

Boston,  January  27,  1841. 

I  spend  my  time  mainly  in  seeing  those  persons  with 
whom  I  can  talk  of  the  expediency  of  establishing  a 
new  society  in  Boston.  The  following  persons  approve 
my  plan,  and  say,  "  Kow  is  the  accepted  time  :  "  Dr. 
W.  E.  Channing,  Mr.  Bartol,  Mr.  Samuel  Barrett,  Mr. 
S.  J.  May,  Father  Taylor,  Mr.  Briggs,  Mr.  Waterston, 
Mr.  Sargent,  Mr.  Eipley,  and  others  among  the  clergy ; 
among  the  laity  many  energetic  persons.  Father  Taylor 
said  now  was  the  time  when  great  good  could  be  done 
by  the  right  man.  He  said  he  wished  me  to  try  what  I 
could  do,  and  promised  me  his  hearty  aid. 

Finally,  I  have  taken  the  decisive  step  of  hiring  the 
Swedenborgian  chapel  for  Sunday  evening  next,  mijself, 
and  advertising  a  meeting  then  and  there.  For  I  find, 
as  Goethe  says,  that 

"  After  much  consultation  and  longest  deliberation, 
The  final  decision  at  last  must  still  be  the  work  of  a  moment." 

If  I  waited  for  others  to  move  I  might  wait  till 
spring,  there  are  so  many  secondary  considerations  to 
be  dealt  with.  I  have  decided  that,  first,  a  society  is 
needed  here  on  a  somewhat  different  basis  from  the  old 
ones  ;  second,  that  no  better  man  is  likely  to  undertake 
it  than  I ;  third,  that  there  is  no  better  time  than  the 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  DISCIPLES.  157 

present  moment.  Therefore,  trusting  in  the  help  of 
God,  I  am  about  to  begin.  Next  Sunday  night  I  shall 
preach  a  discourse  on  the  essentials  of  Christianity,  or 
"  What  shall  I  do  to  be  saved  ?  "  The  second  Sunday 
night  I  shall  preach  on  '^  Justification  by  faith."  The 
third  on  "  The  Church,  as  it  was  at  first,  as  it  ought  to 
be  now,  as  it  can  be  now."  After  this  I  shall  find  a 
place  to  preach  in  both  morning  and  night,  and  shall 
begin  a  series  of  sermons  to  show  what  I  consider  to  be 
important  and  true  in  all  the  usual  doctrines  of  Ortho- 
doxy and  Unitarianism.  May  God  make  me  an  instru- 
ment of  good  in  this  work,  for  surely  much  is  needed. 

Of  the  first  service  he  writes  :  — 

February  1,  1841. 

I  found  my  hall  full,  though  Dr.  Channing  preached 
that  evening  in  Warren  Street  Chapel  to  an  overflowing 
^.udience,  and  Mr.  Briggs,  of  Plymouth,  at  Waterston's 
church  to  a  large  congregation.  Mr.  Gannett  and  Dr. 
Parkman  were  present.  There  was  nothing  new  or 
striking  in  what  I  said,  but  only  the  simple  and  plain 
truth  of  the  matter  as  I  understood  it.  .  .  .  To-day  I 
spent  two  hours  with  Dr.  Channing,  talking  about  my 
plan  of  operations.  He  is  very  much  interested  in  it, 
and  made  many  suggestions  of  value. 

In  the  same  letter  he  says,  "I  went  at  night  to  a 
meeting  at  Judge  Eogers'  to  talk  about  the  project  of 
a  new  church.  A  minister  present  expressed  fears  lest 
individuals  should  be  drawn  away  from  the  existing 
churches,  and  lest  the  Sunday  evening  lectures  should 
seem  to  compete  with  another  series  then  being  deliv- 
ered. But  if  I  were  to  be  turned  aside  from  my  course 
by  such  minute  considerations  as  these  I  should  never 
be  able  to  take  a  single  step.  I  cannot  let  the  minutiae 
of  proprieties  stop  my  work,  which  seems  to  me  a  most 
important  one.     I  never  felt  so  deeply  the  tremendous 


158  DIABY  AND  COERESPONDENCE. 

nature  of  what  I  was  undertaking  as  on  Sunday  night 
last." 

Of  the  second  discourse,  on  "  Justification  by  Faith," 
he  says,  ^'  The  chapel  was  full,  though  there  were  four 
other  Unitarian  services  the  same  evening." 

February  11,  1841. 
I  am  to  preach  my  third  sermon  on  "  The  Church," 
on  Saturday  night,  in  the  Phillips  Chapel.  My  object  is 
to  show  that  the  church  is  not  a  place  to  put  pious  and 
holy  people  into,  and  keep  them  safe,  but  a  place  to  put 
hungry  sinners  into,  feed  them  with  living  bread,  and 
make  them  pious  and  good. 

February  18,  1841. 

I  had  a  meeting  last  evening  to  take  measures  toward 
the .  organization  of  a  new  society.  ...  It  had  been 
snowing,  and  the  walking  was  bad,  yet  there  were  forty 
or  fifty  persons  there,  men  and  women.  I  stated  to 
them  the  objects  and  principles  of  the  church,  and 
ended  by  making  a  distinct  proposal,  namely,  that  I 
would  preach  for  several  months  on  two  conditions  : 
First.  That  a  hall,  with  lights,  should  be  provided  for 
me  to  preach  in.  Second.  That  it  should  be  under- 
stood at  the  outset  that  when  a  church  is  established 
the  three  following  principles  shall  be  embodied  in  it : 

1.  The  social  principle. 

2.  The  voluntary  principle. 

3.  Congregational  worship. 

By  the  social  principle  I  mean  frequent  meetings  for 
conversation,  etc.  [on  religious  subjects]. 

By  the  voluntary  principle  I  mean  no  pews  sold, 
rented,  or  taxed,  but  worship  supported  by  voluntary 
subscriptions. 

By  congregational  worship  I  mean  that  to  some  ex- 
tent the  congregation  should  join  in  the  hymns  and 
prayers.  .  .  . 

A  committee  was  chosen  at  once  to  provide  the  hall, 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  DISCIPLES.  159 

and  it  was  thought  that  we  were  beginning  under  favor- 
able auspices.  We  shall  probably  hold  the  first  of  our 
regular  services  on  the  Sunday  after  next. 

Monday,  February  22,  1841. 

...  I  spent  a  good  part  of  Friday  in  trying  to  find 
a  hall  for  our  services.  It  is  difficult  to  obtain  one  suit- 
able in  every  respect.  Five  or  six  religious  societies 
occupy  the  best  ones  now.  ...  I  called  on  Mr.  Gannett, 
and  offered  to  preach  for  him  on  Sunday.  I  thought  he 
needed  the  help  more  than  any  one  else,  as  he  is  giv- 
ing a  course  of  Sunday  evening  lectures.  .  .  .  Accord- 
ingly I  preached  for  him,  both  morning  and  afternoon, 
and  in  the  evening  went  to  a  crowded  temperance  meet- 
ing at  Waterston's,  where  I  spoke. 

I  delivered  the  Thursday  lecture,  and  gave  my  dis- 
course on  "  Justification  by  Faith." 

He  preached  for  the  first  time  in  Amory  Hall,  Sun- 
day, February  28.  "  In  the  morning  every  seat  was 
full,  and  many  were  obliged  to  go  away.  At  night  it 
was  nearly  full.  It  seats  about  275  persons."  He  men- 
tions individuals  who  were  present,  among  others  Dr. 
and  Mrs.  William  Ellery  Channing. 

April  7, 1841. 

On  Sunday  I  preached  in  our  new  hall,  which  is 
somewhat  larger  and  better  than  the  other,  and  better 
ventilated.     It  was  well  filled.  .  .  . 

On  Monday  afternoon  I  met  my  Bible-class,  and  had 
an  interesting  talk  for  two  hours,  in  the  course  of  which 
we  ran  into  metaphysics.  There  were  twenty -five  or 
thirty  present.  At  night  I  went  to  a  meeting  for  reli- 
gious conversation  at  Mr.  George  Channing's.  .  .  . 

I  came  near  being  knocked  down  yesterday  by  a 
drunken  truckman  for  interfering  to  protect  liis  horse, 
which  he  was  beating  with  a  club.     I  inunediately  went 


160  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

to  the  police  court  for  a  constable  to  have  him  arrested, 
but  could  not  find  the  judge.  I  then  met  Edward  Win- 
slow,  who  undertook  to  see  the  owners  of  the  truck, 
and  have  the  man  properly  rebuked. 

April  10,  1841. 
On  Friday  afternoon  I  saw  Dr.  Channing,  and  talked 
with  him  about  the  organization  of  the  church.  I  told 
him  the  declaration  of  faith  which  I  wished  was  "  In 
Jesus  as  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God."  He  preferred 
"  In  Jesus  as  the  divinely  appointed  teacher  of  truth," 
or  something  equivalent,  because  the  first  was  less  in- 
telligible. I  contended,  however,  for  the  other,  on  the 
ground  that  we  wished  to  connect  ourselves,  not  only 
with  one  another,  but  with  the  whole  church  of  Christ, 
the  only  way  of  doing  which  was  to  adopt  a  universal 
confession,  and  the  only  one  which  could  be  universal 
was  that  on  which  Jesus  built  his  church  at  the  first. 
Dr.  Channing  was,  however,  much  pleased  with  our  plan 
of  partaking  of  the  communion  by  ourselves,  socially, 
meeting  for  this  purpose  alone.  This  he  thought 
would  make  it  more  real  and  heart-felt. 

April  15, 1841. 
On  Tuesday  evening  we  had  a  meeting  of  our  church 
to  discuss  its  organization.  The  snow  was  deep  on  the 
sidewalks,  and  only  three  or  four  women  and  about 
twenty  men  came.  But  it  was  a  delightful  meeting,  be- 
cause there  was  evidently,  with  great  variety  and  free- 
dom of  opinion  on  each  point  discussed,  but  one  heart, 
one  mind.  I  never  knew  anything  like  it.  There  were 
three  points  on  which  we  took  votes,  points  concern- 
ing which  the  opinions  were  quite  various,  yet  each 
of  these  votes  was  unanimous,  and  all  voted.  The 
first  question  was  whether  the  time  had  come  to  begin 
an  organization.  Several  present  were  not  ready  yet 
to  unite  themselves,  and  opposed  it ;  yet  at  last,  after 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  DISCIPLES.  161 

hearing  the  arguments,  were  convinced  that  it  wouhl  be 
better  for  the  church  to  have  a  nucleus  formed,  and 
voted  with  the  rest  in  the  affirmative.  The  other  tw^o 
points  related  to  the  declaration  which  is  to  be  the 
groundwork  and  basis  of  union.  It  is  this,  as  we  de- 
cided by  two  unanimous  votes  :  — 

"  We,  whose  names  are  subscribed,  unite  together  in 
the  following  faith  and  purpose  :  — 

"  Our  faith  is  in  Jesus,  as  the  Christ,  the  Son  of 
God. 

"  And  we  do  hereby  form  ourselves  into  a  Church  of 
his  Disciples,  that  we  may  cooperate  together  in  the 
study  and  practice  of  Christianity." 

We  determined  to  have  no  other  organization  but 
this,  not  to  organize  at  all  as  a  religious  society  upon 
the  money  basis. 

April  16,  1841. 

Our  church  was  crowded  last  night.  I  w^ent  up  to 
Dr.  Channing's  afterward,  to  bid  them  good-by.  They 
go  to  Philadelphia  to-morrow,  then  to  Newport.  Dr. 
Channing  gave  me  his  parting  advice  and  counsel.  He 
said  the  danger  would  be,  a  tendency  to  conform  to 
the  old,  established  way^s,  as  the  mass  exerted  a  great 
power  of  attraction.  He  said  again,  emphatically,  that 
we  must  be  more  afraid  of  formality  than  of  eccentri- 
city. 

Boston,  Friday,  April  30,  1841. 

.  .  .  We  had  a  meeting  Tuesday  night,  and  organized 
our  church,  forty-eight  names  being  subscribed  to  our 
declaration. 

Newton,  May  11,  1841. 

On  Sunday  the  hall  was  quite  full  in  the  morning, 
and  overflowing  at  night.  Ephraim  Peabody,  ^Ir.  Gan- 
nett, Mr.  Farley  of  Providence,  Mr.  Thompson  of 
Salem,  Dr.  Parkman,  and  one  or  two  more  ministers 
were  present  at  the  evening  service.  In  the  afternoon, 
Barnard  being  sick,  I  conducted  services  at  the  Warren 


162  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

Street  Chapel,  and  preached  a  short  extempore  sermon. 
I  carried  Conant,  the  Illinois  farmer  student,  with  me, 
and  made  him  preach  a  short  discourse  before  mine. 
He  did  it  very  well.^ 

I  went  to  Newton  Sunday  night  after  preaching,  and 
came  to  Boston  again  Monday  afternoon  to  my  Bible- 
class.  There  was  a  storm  of  rain,  but  eight  or  ten 
were  present.  We  had  our  social  meeting  at  night  at 
Dr.  Osgood's.  There  were  about  fifty  present,  men  and 
women.  The  subject  was  "  Lay  Preaching."  The  con- 
servative and  radical  elements  came  into  warm  conflict, 
but  the  most  perfect  good  feeling  reigned.  However 
much  we  may  differ  in  opinion,  we  always  agree  as  to 
what  we  shall  do.  We  agreed  that  it  would  be  well 
not  to  have  any  lay  preaching  on  Sundays,  except  when 
the  regular  preacher  was  unable  to  attend,  and  no  other 
minister  could  be  procured. 

^  Rev.  A.  H.  Conant  is  remembered  and  loved  in  the  Unitarian 
Church  at  the  West  as  a  saint  and  an  apostle.  The  story  of  his  in- 
troduction to  that  church  is  interesting. 

Early  in  life  he  was  a  farmer  in  Illinois.  Coming  one  day  to  the 
store  of  the  Clarke  Brothers  in  Chicago  to  make  some  purchases,  he 
saw  there  a  copy  of  the  Western  Messenger,  and  opening  it  began  to 
read.  Mr.  A.  F.  Clarke,  seeing  his  interest  in  the  magazine,  placed  a 
chair  for  him,  and  into  this  Mr.  Conant  dropped,  and  went  on  read- 
ing. When  he  left,  Mr.  Clarke  gave  him  some  numbers  of  the  maga- 
zine to  take  home  with  him.  In  reading  these  he  was  moved  to  con- 
secrate his  life  to  the  work  of  the  ministry.  He  studied  at  the 
Cambridge  Divinity  School,  under  Henry  Ware,  Jr.,  and  afterwards 
was  settled  in  Illinois,  his  influence  extending  through  all  the  region 
about  him.  As  a  chaplain  during  the  war  he  was  imfailing  in  his  de- 
votion to  the  soldiers,  whether  in  camp,  in  hospital,  or  on  the  battle- 
field. At  his  death  a  soldier  in  the  ranks  wrote  :  "The  brave  and 
noble  chaplain,  who  never  turned  aside  for  bullet  or  shell,  but  where 
balls  flew  thick  and  fast  sought  out  the  wounded  and  administered 
to  their  wants,  is  dead.  Never  while  I  live  can  I  forget  him  as  I  saw 
him  on  the  field,  with  his  red  flag  suspended  on  a  ramrod,  marching 
fearlessly  to  the  relief  of  the  sufi^ering ;  appearing  to  the  wounded 
like  a  ministering  angel.  When  we  said,  '  Chaplain,  you  must  rest  or 
you  will  die,'  he  always  replied,  '  I  cannot  rest,  boys,  while  you  suf- 
fer ;  if  I  die,  I  will  die  helping  you.'  " 

And  die  at  his  post  he  did,  in  February,  1863. 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  DISCIPLES.  1G3 

I  found  Mr.  Gannett's  card  on  my  table  yesterday, 
so  to-day  I  called  to  see  him.  He  showed  me  a  letter 
in  the  "  ISTew  York  Observer,"  in  whijh  they  speak  of 
my  church  being  Orthodox  in  its  character.  Mean- 
time, others  call  us  the  transcendental  church.  Mr. 
Gannett  was  very  cordial,  and  assured  me  that  the 
ministers  were  disposed  to  sympathize  with  me. 

The  journals  of  these  years  are  filled  with  the  record 
of  thoughts,  of  studies,  of  work ;  of  talks  with  brother 
ministers  on  topics  relating  to  the  church,  with  public 
men  about  the  state  of  the  country,  with  his  own  people 
on  questions  of  faith  and  practice.  There  are  copious 
notes  of  lectures  which  he  heard  from  Professor  Agassiz 
and  others  ;  notes  of  his  reading,  of  books  planned ; 
here  and  there  a  short  poem,  or  a  translation  of  one. 

He  was  much  interested  in  the  condition  of  prison- 
ers, and  in  his  journal  considers  what  methods  are  most 
likely  to  influence  them  for  good.  Later  in  life  he  took 
an  active  part  in  this  work. 

He  was  a  constant  contributor  to  the  "  Christian 
World,"  one  of  whose  expressed  objects  was  *'  to  awaken 
an  interest  in  all  the  great  philanthropic  enterprises  of 
the  day,  by  giving  constant  information  on  all  that  is 
doing  in  the  cause  of  temperance,  peace,  freedom,  Sun- 
day-schools, moral  and  social  reform,  and  on  questions 
of  politics  having  a  moral  bearing." 

He  took  an  active  interest  in  the  Free-Soil  move- 
ment, and  several  times  spoke  at  public  meetings  held 
by  members  of  the  Free-Soil  party. 

When  the  Boston  Association  of  ]\Iinisters  met  at  his 
house  in  1844,  the  question  he  proposed  for  considera- 
tion was,  "  What  should  be  the  specific  object  of  preach- 
ing?" he  himself  taking  the  ground  that,  without  a 
definite  plan,  the  preacher  would  be  as  one  who  beats 
the  air.  When  the  same  association  met  at  his  house 
in  1847,  the  subject  he  proposed  was,   "The  Aim  of 


164  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

Life."     He   adds   in   his    diary,    "The   discussion  was 
serious  and  interesting." 

Frequent  reference  is  made  in  the  Autobiography  to 
the  "  social  meetings "  of  the  Church  of  the  Disciples. 
A  list  of  topics  for  conversation  at  these  meetings  dur- 
ing the  winter  of  1845-46  is  here  given :  — 

1.  What  is  the  true  Christian  doctrine  of  regenera- 
tion ? 

2.  "  There  is  no  instinctive,  intuitive,  or  direct  know- 
ledge of  the  truths  of  religion,  either  of  the  being  of 
God  or  of  our  own  immortality."  —  Andrews  Norton. 

3.  What  is  the  inspiration  of  the  New  Testament  ? 

4.  Is  sin  a  negative  or  a  positive  evil  ? 

5.  "  Be  ye  perfect,  as  your  Father  in  Heaven  is  per- 
fect." Is  this  to  be  understood  and  obeyed  in  a  literal 
or  a  limited  sense  ? 

6.  What  is  the  New  Testament  doctrine  of  the  hid- 
den life  ? 

7.  Shall  we  maintain  and  urge  our  opinions  always, 
or  sometimes  concede  for  the  sake  of  union  ? 

8.  Should  the  good  withdraw  from  an  evil  commu- 
nity, or  separate  themselves  from  an  evil  man  ? 

9.  What  is  the  sphere  of  woman,  and  how  shall  she 
best  be  educated  to  fill  it  ? 

10.  What  is  the  Christian  idea  of  the  future  state, 
and  of  the  spiritual  world  ? 

11.  AVhat  is  the  doctrine  of  Scripture  with  regard  to 
eternal  punishment,  and  what  is  the  Christian  view  of 
future  retribution  ? 

12.  What  views  do  the  Scriptures  afford  us  of  a 
spiritual  body  ? 

13.  What  are  the  principles  and  ideas  peculiar  to 
Protestantism,  as  distinguished  from  those  peculiar  to 
the  Church  of  Rome  ? 

14.  What  is  needed  by  Unitarianism,  at  the  present 
time,  to  give  it  greater  influence  and  success  ? 

The  programme  which  has  this  list  of  topics  adds  :  — 


THE  CHURCH   OF  THE  DISCIPLES.  165 

"  The  social  meetings  of  the  Church  of  the  Disciples 
are  held  once  a  fortnight,  on  Wednesday  evening,  at 
the  houses  of  the  brethren.  On  the  alternate  Wednes- 
day, there  is  a  prayer-meeting  of  the  church,  at  Eitchie 
Hall.  Both  meetings  begin  at  seven  and  close  at  nine 
o'clock. 

"The  subjects  will  be  discussed  at  the  social  meetings 
in  the  order  in  which  they  are  printed.  The  church 
may,  however,  substitute  by  its  vote  any  subject  not 
on  the  above  list  which  it  may  think  it  desirable  to 
consider." 

TO  s.  s.  c. 

December  13,  1846. 

Church  matters  have  begun  again  this  winter  in  a 
good  spirit ;  our  social  and  prayer  meetings  have  been 
good,  and  our  church  has  been  well  filled  on  Sunday. 
There  is  some  talk  of  building.  I  hope  we  may  suc- 
ceed this  time. 

At  home  we  are  all  happy  and  well.  Our  house  is 
gradually  assuming  a  comfortable,  domestic  look.  The 
children's  portrait  (by  Cheney)  is  done,  framed,  and 
hanging  in  the  front  parlor  over  the  fireplace.  Herman 
and  Lilla  go  to  school  every  day,  and  are  making  rapid 
strides  in  all  the  branches  of  a  liberal  education.  They 
can  repeat  the  multiplication  table  as  far  as  3  X  7  =  21. 
Lilla  can  spell  words  of  four  letters,  Herman  a  little 
more.  He  has  also  begun  to  draw  on  the  slate,  and 
makes  very  respectable  houses,  the  walls  of  which  are 
often  not  farther  out  of  the  perpendicular  than  those  of 
the  tower  of  Pisa.  .  .  . 

Anna  and  I  have  been  to  some  geological  lectures, 
and  been  much  edified  in  relation  to  animals  of  tlie 
Palaeozoic  times.  Now  we  are  hearing  Agassiz,  who 
lectures  on  the  unity  of  plan  in  creation.  These  lec- 
tures are  very  interesting  and  curious. 

I  went  to  New  Bedford  last  week  to  lecture  on  Joan 
of  Arc,  —  a   heroine   whom    I   much  approve  for  her 


166  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

heroic  courage,  her  wonderful  faith,  and  her  gentle 
womanhood.  I  intend  to  give  a  series  of  biographical 
discourses  in  our  church  in  the  evening,  on  Sundays ; 
on  which  occasions  I  shall  speak  of  such  persons  as 
Joan  of  Arc,  Martin  Luther,  John  Milton,  Fox  and  the 
Quakers,  Wesley  and  the  Methodists,  Cardinal  Borro- 
meo,  Blanco  White,  etc. 

Our  Bible-classes  have  been  interesting.  At  the  last 
two  meetings  we  have  spoken  of  the  sin  against  the 
Holy  Ghost. 

This  summer,  after  we  came  from  Meadville,  and 
after  I  had  delivered  my  poem  before  the  $.  B.  K.  So- 
ciety (which  most  of  the  papers  said  was  not  artistic), 
we  went  to  the  seashore  at  Beverly  and  Kockport,  and 
had  a  very  pleasant  time.  We  took  long  walks  in  the 
woods,  and  sat  on  the  rocks  looking  at  the  waves,  or 
spent  mornings  in  bathing  among  the  rocks.  All  was 
very  beautiful. 

TO    S.    S.    C. 

October  4,  1847. 

...  On  Saturday  Anna  and  I  walked  six  miles  ;  and 
a  day  or  two  before  that  we  rowed  in  a  boat  from  Bille- 
rica,  where  we  are  now  staying,  to  Concord,  a  distance 
of  ten  miles  and  ten  back.  It  was  a  lovely  day,  and 
the  woods  on  either  bank  were  changing  to  beautiful 
tints  of  yellow  and  crimson  ;  the  air  was  soft  and  warm, 
but  elastic  and  strengthening.  The  river  winds  gently 
among  fields  and  woods  ;  tall  elms  and  maples  shade  its 
banks.  At  Concord  we  landed  at  the  foot  of  ]\Ir.  Kip- 
ley's  garden, — the  Old  Manse,  you  knoAv,  from  which 
Hawthorne  gathered  his  mosses. 

Our  church  building  is  going  up  rapidly,  and  we  shall 
soon  be  in  it.  It  will  be  a  pretty  building,  I  think, 
and  will  suit  us  very  well.  We  shall  have  a  famous 
large  vestry  below,  for  a  Sunday-school  and  conference 
room.^ 

1  This  was  the  Freeman  Place  Chapel. 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  DISCIPLES.  167 

The  new  chapel,  in  Freeman  Place,  was  dedicated 
March  15,  1848.  From  Mr.  Clarke's  sermon  at  the 
dedication  we  give  a  few  sentences  :  — 

.  .  .  We  united  together  seven  years  ago  and  estab- 
lished this  Church  of  Disciples.  We  took  that  name  in 
sincere  humility.  We  wished  to  be  scholars,  learners, 
sitting  at  the  feet  of  Jesus.  We  wished  to  unite  to- 
gether, to  cooperate,  to  help  each  other  onward  and  up- 
ward. Our  creed  was  faith  in  Christ,  and  we  included 
in  our  body  many  varieties  and  even  extremes  of  opin- 
ion. Your  minister  was  one  of  yourselves ;  he  assumed 
no  official  authority,  he  wished  that  all  the  brethren 
should  occupy  the  pulpit ;  he  wishes  and  hopes  for  it 
still.  A  band  of  brothers  and  friends,  we  sought  for  a 
deeper  religious  life,  for  a  larger  view  of  truth,  for  a 
better  habit  of  active  goodness.  .  .  . 

AVe  enter  to-day  into  this  new  house,  which  is  to  be 
our  home.  .  .  .  AVe  wish  and  intend  that  these  doors 
shall  be  always  open  to  welcome  the  stranger,  the  feeble, 
the  wretched.  AVe  wish  and  intend  that  here  the  rich 
and  the  poor  may  sit  together  ;  that  the  fugitive  slave 
and  the  penitent  prodigal  may  feel  themselves  welcome, 
as  they  always  have  been. 

After  the  mention  of  the  dedication  in  his  diary  the 
next  entry  there  is,  — 

I  intend  to  have  a  series  of  lectures  on  reforms  de- 
livered on  Sunday  evenings,  in  our  church  :  — 

1.  Reforms  :  Their  relation  to  the  Church,  to  the 
Age ;  by  J.  F.  Clarke.  2.  The  Temperance  Reform  : 
Its  history,  idea,  present  state.  AVhat  is  wanted  now. 
What  ought  the  Church  to  do  ?  by  E.  H.  Chapin,  or 
John  Pierpont.  3.  The  Peace  Movement ;  by  Theodore 
Parker,  or  S.  J.  May.  4.  The  Anti-Slavery  Alovement ; 
by   Wendell   Phillips.      5.    Reforms   in   prisons,   poor- 


168  DIARY  AND  COREESPONDENCE. 

houses,  hospitals,  insane  asylums,  etc. ;  by  Dr.  S.  G. 
Howe,  or  J.  A.  Andrew.  6.  Social  Keform ;  by  W.  H. 
Channing.     7.  Educational  Reform  ;  by  Horace  Mann. 

FROM    HIS    DIARY. 

1848.  April  12.  There  are  four  elements  which  ought 
to  exist  in  a  church,  and  which  never  have  existed  to- 
gether in  any  Christian  church  since  the  first  century, 
namely  :  — 

1.  A  deep  spirit  of  individual,  inward  religion. 

2.  An  entire  intellectual  freedom  of  thought  and  ex- 
pression. 

3.  A  union  of  hands  and  hearts.     Eeal  brotherhood. 

4.  A  practical  direction  of  effort  to  elevate  and  purify 
mankind. 

Separately  we  find  these  elements  often,  but  we  never 
find  them  all  combined  in  any  association.  .  .  . 

Is  the  difficulty  in  the  existing  forms  of  church  or- 
ganization ?  In  a  paid  and  professional  minister  ? 

FROM    HIS    DIARY. 

1848.  July.  I  know  nothing  which  I  can  do  which 
would  be  more  useful  than  to  write  a  little  book  on  The 
Positive  Doctrines  of  Christianity.  In  this  I  would  at- 
tempt to  give  the  positive  contents  of  the  gospel  as  dis- 
tinguished from  speculative  and  verbal  controversies. 
.  .  .  Some  of  the  chapters  would  be  on  :  — 

1.  The  Positive  Doctrines  of  Christianity  concerning 
God. 

2.  The  Positive  Doctrines  of  Christianity  concerning 
Man. 

3.  The  Positive  Doctrines  of  Christianity  concerning 
Christ. 

4.  Concerning  Regeneration,  or  the  Christian  Change. 

5.  Concerning  the  Future  Life. 

Positive  doctrines  are  also  practical  in  the  highest 
sense. 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  DISCIPLES.  1G9 


TO    H.    \V.    BELLOWS. 

Boston,  February  27,  1849. 

I  have  just  read  your  kind  and  interesting  letter  of 
last  week.  I  thank  you  for  your  sympathy  in  our  trial. 
It  was  very  sudden.  The  little  path  our  boy  dug 
through  the  snow  a  fortnight  ago  has  not  "yet  melted 
away,  and  he  has  been  lying  ten  days  in  his  grave. 
The  day  after  you  left  Boston  I  went  with  Mrs.  Clarke 
to  call  on  Mrs.  Bellows  (not  knowing  you  were  gone), 
and  we  saw  Herman  standing  at  the  head  of  Walnut 
Street.  He  begged  to  go  with  us,  and  went  to  Mr.  Bar- 
tol's  door,  and  said  he  would  sit  on  the  step  till  we 
came  out.  That  was  the  last  time  I  walked  with  him. 
.  .  .  Your  words  show  that  we  have  been  led  along  the 
same  path  of  discipline.  .  .  . 

I  am  extremely  interested  in  your  plans  concerning 
the  "Inquirer."  I  see  no  reason  why  it  should  not 
succeed.  The  plan  of  assistant  editors  is  also  good, 
I  should  say.  Dewey,  if  he  will  write,  is  of  course 
a  great  help.  Osgood  has  indefatigable  industry,  and 
also  ready  talents.  There  is  Henry  Hedge,  of  Bangor, 
a  man  whose  mind  is  full  of  matter  and  of  the  best 
kind,  rich  in  thought  and  experience.  You  must  con- 
sider that  men  who  are  to  write  every  week  will  tire 
the  readers  except  they  have  an  artistic  style  and  can 
charm  by  new  forms  of  expression.  But  at  all  events, 
secure,  if  you  can,  James  H.  Perkins,  of  Cincinnati,  as  a 
contributor  and  correspondent.  He  is  an  admirable 
writer  of  short  pieces,  —  full  of  point,  life,  wit,  beauty, 
—  and  his  ideas  are  very  pure  and  noble. 

But  above  all,  remember  not  to  forget  George  F. 
Simmons,  who  is  a  purely  religious  man,  with  insight, 
talent,  knowledge,  and  a  generous  theology.  Tlien 
there  is  my  Orthodox  brother  Lesley,  of  jNIilton,  a  good 
writer,  and  liberal  as  you  please. 

I  should  be  very  glad  to  write  for  a  paper  such  as  I 
believe  yours  will  be. 


170  DIARY  AND  COBBESPONDENCE. 


H.    W.    BELLOWS    TO    J.    F.    C. 

New  York,  March  21,  1849. 

.  .  .  "We  mean  to  issue  the  first  number  on  the  first 
Saturday  in  April.  .  .  .  Can  you  suggest  a  good  Scrip- 
ture motto  for  the  paper  ?  Is  it  worth  while  to  add 
any  other  and  more  descriptive  epithet  or  clause  to  the 
title  "  The  Christian  Inquirer  "  ?  I  hope  we  are  some- 
thing more  than  inquirers.  .  .  . 

I  am  persuaded  that  what  we  want  in  our  paper 
mainly  is  a  deeper,  truer,  more  practical  religious  tone, 
and  I  hope  you  will  furnish  some  articles  which  have 
expressly  for  their  aim  to  kindle  religious  life  in  indi- 
vidual hearts.  ...  It  is  our  showy,  noisy,  superficial 
goodness  that  lets  the  world  stay  unconverted. 


CHAPTER  X. 

EUROPE. 

After  more  than  eight  years  of  vigorous  work  Mr. 
Clarke,  by  the  kind  arrangement  of  members  of  his  so- 
ciety, passed  a  summer  in  Europe,  sailing  from  Boston 
in  the  "  Plymouth  Eock,''  July  6,  1849. 

Eleven  weeks  were  spent  in  Europe,  to  his  great  de- 
light, and  the  account  which  he  printed  afterwards 
shows  his  activity  during  these  weeks.  Like  most 
American  optimists  of  the  day,  he  believed  that  uni- 
versal peace  was  nearer  than  it  has  proved,^  and  he 
had  been  named,  with  his  own  permission,  a  delegate 
to  the  Peace  Congress  to  be  held  at  Paris.  I  sup- 
pose, however,  that  he  was  named  a  delegate  because 
he  was  going  to  Europe,  not  that  he  went  to  Europe 
because  he  was  a  delegate.  Napoleon  III.,  with  grim 
sarcasm,  welcomed  the  convention,  gave  it  a  hall,  and 
appointed  sentries  to  pace  in  front  and  keep  it  from 
disturbance. 

"  I  had  made  up  my  mind,"  Mr.  Clarke  says,  "  that 
what  I  wished  to  see  in  Europe  was,  in  the  first  place, 
the  Alps  ;  secondly,  fine  paintings  and  picture  galleries  ; 
and,  in  the  third  place,  the  old  cathedrals."     And  his 

^  "  We  stand  on  the  threshold  of  a  new  ag-e,  which  is  preparing'  to 
recognize  new  influences.  The  ancient  divinities  of  Violence  and 
Wrong'  are  retreating-  to  their  kindred  darkness.  The  sun  of  our 
moral  universe  is  entering-  a  new  ecliptic,  no  longer  deformed  by  tliose 
images  of  animal  rag-e,  Cancer,  Taurus,  Leo,  Sagittarius,  but  beaming 
with  the  mild  radiance  of  those  heavenly  signs,  Faith,  Hope,  and 
Charity."  —  Charles  Sumner,  in  184G.  Mr.  Sumner  lived  to  put  on 
his  zodiac  Preston  Brooks  and  the  heroes  of  the  Civil  War. 


172  DIAEY  AND  COBRESPONDENCE. 

rules  for  persons  like  himself,  who  "have  a  taste  for 
art,  but  no  pretense  to  knowledge,"  are  characteristic : 
"  First :  Have  faith.  Believe  that  what  the  testimony 
of  mankind  through  many  centuries  declares  to  be 
great  is  really  great,  though  you  cannot  at  first  dis- 
cover its  grandeur  or  beauty.  Second :  Try,  not  to  see 
many  things,  but  to  see  a  few  things  w^ell.  Third :  One 
gains  much  insight  into  the  peculiar  genius  of  the  great 
artists  by  comparing  their  styles." 

But  while  he  says  he  has  no  technical  knowledge,  it 
is  clear,  from  his  quite  full  criticisms  of  pictures,  that 
he  carried  out  his  third  rule  steadfastly.  He  drew  well 
enough  to  know  what  bad  drawing  was,  and  he  was  so 
much  in  the  company  of  artists  that  it  was  impossible 
for  him  to  look  at  a  picture  without  thought  of  the 
technical  principles  involved. 

His  account  of  the  Peace  Congress,  written,  I  sup- 
pose, as  a  letter  to  the  Church  of  the  Disciples,  is  to  be 
remembered  as  showing  how  far  there  was  any  hope  for 
universal  peace,  and  how  practical  was  his  own  notion 
of  such  an  accord  of  Europe  as  might,  in  practice,  lead 
to  disarmament.  There  was  a  large  attendance  of  dele- 
gates, four  or  five  hundred  coming  from  England.  The 
committee  of  arrangements  had  provided  that  Victor 
Hugo  should  preside,  and  had  made  the  Abbe  Deguerry, 
Cure  of  the  Madeleine,  and  Athanase  Coquerel,  the 
head  of  the  Erench  Unitarians,  Vice-Presidents.  Mr. 
Cobden  spoke,  Emile  de  Girardin,  Amasa  Walker,  Elihu 
Burritt,  and  William  W.  Brown,  a  refugee  slave. 

"  On  the  whole,"  Mr.  Clarke  says,  "  the  Peace  Con- 
gress probably  did  just  as  much  good  as  any  man  could 
reasonably  expect.  The  effect  of  these  meetings  is 
often  exaggerated.  To  bring  together  those  who  hold 
certain  opinions,  by  means  of  a  convention,  does  not 
necessarily  increase  the  number  holding  such  views." 
It  is  a  pity  that  these  last  words  could  not  be  written 
in  letters  of  gold  in  all  public  halls.     "  Indeed,  if  vio- 


EUROPE.  173 

lent,  weak,  or  extreme  opinions  are  expressed,  the  con- 
vention may  injure  the  cause  instead  of  helping  it. 
The  members,  however,  are  seldom  aware  of  this ;  they 
enjoy  each  other's  sympathy,  and  mistake  the  sentiment 
of  the  meetings  for  public  opinion." 

"  The  real  good  done  by  the  Peace  Congress  was  to 
call  men's  attention  to  the  subject." 

He  does  not  allude,  in  his  book,  to  the  incident  of 
Salisbury  spire,  of  which  the  narrative,  in  later  life, 
terrified  his  friends.  The  spire  of  Salisbury  Cathedral 
is  a  little  more  than  four  hundred  feet  high.  With 
some  friends,  Mr.  Clarke  ascended  as  far  as  the  inte- 
rior staircase  goes,  to  what  is  called  the  weather-door, 
about  thirty  feet  from  the  extreme  top  of  the  spire. 
The  others  were  then  satisfied  with  what  they  had 
done ;  but  he  went  out  and  climbed  up  the  remaining 
part  of  the  spire,  by  iron  handles  fixed  in  the  walls, 
these  having  been  arranged  for  the  convenience  of 
workmen  who  have  to  attend  to  the  vane,  and  of  hardy 
visitors.  When  he  arrived  at  the  highest  of  these,  he 
found  a  bar  above  him,  running  round  the  spire,  which  he 
could  reach  with  his  hands.  By  this  he  lifted  himself 
to  the  level  of  the  ball,  and,  as  most  versions  of  this 
anecdote  say,  stood  on  top  of  the  ball,  with  such  sup- 
port as  the  lightning  rod  could  give  him,  survejdng  the 
scene.  He  then  returned  to  the  supporting  rod,  and 
dropped  himself,  expecting  to  find  the  friendly  bolt  by 
which  he  had  ascended.  But  it  was  not  there,  and  he 
reflected,  too  late,  that  he  had  not  observed  on  which 
side  of  the  spire  it  was.  Then  and  there  he  had,  so  to 
speak,  to  work  around  the  spire  hanging  by  his  hands ; 
and  having  unfortunately  chosen  the  least  favorable  di- 
rection, he  nearly  completed  its  circuit  before  he  found 
under  his  foot  the  bolt  which  was  to  be  the  first  step 
in  his  retreat. 

This  story  must  be  compared  with  the  anecdote 
of   his   standing   on   top  of  the   spar   erected   on   the 


174  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

Delta,  to  show  what  a  passion  he  had  for  these  high 
elevations.^ 

In  a  letter  written  while  on  the  voyage  he  gives  a 
pleasant  description  of  life  on  board  the  sailing  vessel. 
After  breakfast  came  a  service  in  the  cabin ;  and  then 
the  ministers,  of  whom  there  were  a  number  on  board, 
sat  round  the  table  writing  in  their  journals. 

In  the  course  of  the  day  they  had  gymnastic  exercises 
on  deck,  and  in  these  Mr.  Clarke  was  leader.  Two 
hours  every  evening  were  devoted  to  the  discussion  of 
questions  relating  to  peace  and  war. 

One  of  Mr.  Clarke's  favorite  seats  in  leisure  hours 
during  the  day  was  in  the  mizzen-top.  Here  he  studied 
his  Ollendorff,  and  here  he  wrote  the  lines  called 
"  White-capt  Waves,"  in  reading  which  we  also  seem 
to  see  the  ocean  from  the  mizzen-top. 

White-capt  waves  far  round  the  Ocean, 
Leaping  in  thanks  or  leaping  in  play, 

All  your  bright  faces,  in  happy  commotion, 
Make  glad  matins  this  summer  day. 

The  rosy  light  through  the  morning's  portals 
Tinges  your  crests  with  an  August  hue ; 

Calling  on  us,  thought-prisoned  mortals, 
Thus  to  live  in  the  moment  too. 

For,  graceful  creatures,  you  live  by  dying, 
Save  your  life  when  you  fling  it  away. 

Flow  through  all  forms,  all  form  defying. 
And  in  wildest  freedom  strict  rule  obey. 

1  I  am  quite  aware  that  in  the  detail  of  this  story  there  may  be 
some  error,  for  I  have  heard  it  told  in  difFerent  ways.  But  the 
substance  of  it,  I  am  sure,  is  true,  and  I  have  verified  it  from  the 
facts  as  they  are  recorded,  with  regard  to  the  arrangements  of  the  top 
of  the  spire  about  that  time.  When  he  told  it  at  a  meeting  of  the 
Class  of  1829,  more  than  a  generation  afterward,  old  friends  of  his 
found  they  could  not  sleep  that  night  in  their  terror  for  what  might 
have  happened. 


J 


EUROPE.  175 

Show  us  your  art,  0  genial  daughters 

Of  solemn  Ocean,  thus  to  combine 
Freedom  and  force  of  rolling  waters 

With  sharp  observance  of  law  divine. 

A  few  short  extracts  from  letters  written  home  dur- 
ing his  European  journey  will  show  how  fresh  and  gen- 
uine was  his  enjoyment  of  the  new  scenes  which  met 
his  eye  from  day  to  day. 

TO   A.   H.    c. 

AMBLEsroE,  August  1,  1849. 
I  have  done  much  since  I  arrived  on  Thursday  last 
at  Liverpool.  On  Friday  I  went  to  Chester,  and  saw 
the  old  town  and  cathedral.  Saturday,  saw  Eaton 
Hall  and  park.  Sunday,  preached  in  Liverpool  three 
times.  Monday,  went  by  steamer  to  Bangor  and  Caer- 
narvon, sailing  under  the  Menai  Bridge.  Tuesday,  rode 
forty  miles  through  the  fine  scenery  of  North  Wales, 
and  spent  two  hours  in  Conway  Castle,  then  back  to 
Liverpool.  Wednesday,  to  the  lakes.  Friday,  Warwick 
and  Kenilworth.  I  am  glad  that  I  am  to  stay  in  Lon- 
don a  week,  for  I  am  tired  of  running  about  the  king- 
dom in  such  a  hurry,  and  I  wish  to  sit  still  and  look  at 

pictures.  .  .  . 

London,  August  10. 

.  .  .  Sunday  morning  I  heard  Dr.  Hutton  preach.  In 
the  afternoon  I  went  to  the  service  in  Westminster 
Abbey.  It  is  a  glorious  place.  I  sat  listening  to  the 
chants,  but  looking  up  along  the  endless  lines  of  col- 
umns and  arches,  up,  up,  to  the  lofty  vaults  above,  and 
saw  the  immensity  of  the  structure,  and  felt  that  man 
cannot  live  by  bread  alone.  The  unnecessary  amount 
of  space  and  building  makes  it  seem  like  the  exuber- 
ance of  nature,  who  never  counts  her  leaves  and  flow- 
ers. 


176  DIABY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE, 

Salisbury,  August  15. 

To-day  I  have  been  to  Stonehenge,  riding  over  Salis- 
bury Plain,  a  broad,  open,  rolling  piece  of  country,  as 
much  like  a  Northern  Illinois  prairie  as  can  be,  except 
that  it  is  poor  land  and  no  grouse,  all  chalk  under  a 
thin  surface  of  soil.  But  Stonehenge  was  fine.  The 
air  blew  cool  around  us  as  we  sat  among  these  old  relics 
of  ancient  days.  They  seemed  to  talk  of  the  twenty 
centuries  which  had  drifted  by  ;  but  just  then  I  looked 
up,  and  saw  a  little  sparrow  chirping  on  the  top  of  one 
of  the  impostal  stones,  —  the  gay  child  of  nature,  born 
yesterday,  making  merry  over  these  solemn  ages.  .  .  . 
Then  we  saw  the  wondrous  beauty  of  Salisbury  min- 
ster. I  went  to  the  very  top  and  stood  by  the  vane, 
four  hundred  feet  above  the  ground.  It  is  a  noble 
building.  We  saw  it  in  the  soft  light  of  a  warm  Au- 
gust afternoon,  and  it  will  linger  in  my  mind  as  a  vision 
of  pure  beauty. 

Paris,  August  22. 

To-day  our  Peace  Congress  met.  There  were  about 
a  thousand  delegates,  of  whom  six  hundred  came  from 
England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland.  There  were,  besides, 
a  thousand  spectators.  Victor  Hugo,  the  poet  and 
novelist,  presided,  and  made  a  noble  speech.  Cobden, 
Coquerel,  and  others  spoke. 

August  28. 

The  Prench  Government  has  been  exceedingly  civil 
to  the  Congress.  It  allowed  the  members  to  come  and 
go  without  passports  or  custom-house  examination.  The 
minister  of  public  works  ordered  that  all  the  public 
buildings  should  be  shown  us  on  the  presentation  of 
our  Peace  Congress  ticket.  .  .  . 

At  the  Palais  du  Luxembourg  I  saw  the  Senate  Cham- 
ber, where  Napoleon's  Senators  met,  and  the  Chamber 
of  Peers.  Round  the  last  were  busts  of  Massena,  Auge- 
reau,  etc.  The  guide,  an  officer,  said,  "  See  the  men 
against  whom  you  are  working."  I  replied,  "  Not  against 


EUROPE.  177 

the  men,  but  against  the  system ;  we  admire  courage." 
He  said,  "  Vous  aimez  le  courage,  pas  le  carnage." 

Zurich,  September  2. 

I  too  am  in  Switzerland !  I  have  had  my  first  dis- 
tant view  of  the  high  Alps.  I  am  trying  liard,to  real- 
ize it  all.  .  .  .  From  Paris  we  came  by  rail  the  first 
fifty  miles,  but  in  our  diligence,  which  was  hoisted  by  a 
machine  on  the  rail-car,  and  hoisted  oif  again  and  re- 
placed on  its  wheels  when  we  arrived.  .  .  . 

At  Strasbourg  I  went  to  the  minster,  and  mounted  to 
the  top  of  the  spire,  the  highest  in  Europe,  474  feet. 
.  .  .  Leaving  Strasbourg,  we  crossed  the  lihine  and  en- 
tered Germany.  After  a  lovely  ride  we  reached  Frei- 
burg at  9.30  p.  M.  Lovely  in  the  moonlight  rose  the 
Freiburg  minster,  more  fair  and  graceful,  I  must  needs 
think,  in  its  proportions  than  that  of  Strasbourg.  .  .    . 

After  crossing  the  Khine  at  Eglisau,  we  had  our  first 
view  of  the  high  Alps.  To  the  pleasure  and  amuse- 
ment of  the  driver,  we  rose  to  our  feet  and  gave  three 
cheers.  There  the}^  lay,  exquisitely  delicate  in  outline, 
their  snowy  summits  glittering  in  the  sunset.  .  .  . 
These  were  the  eternal  Alps,  the  inaccessible  Alps, 
seventy  or  eighty  miles  off.  It  was  the  group  around 
the  Jungfrau. 

September  5. 

On  jVIonday  afternoon  we  ascended  the  Rhigi.  We 
reached  the  top  in  time  to  see  the  sun  set,  only  it 
was  enveloped  in  clouds.  But  we  saw  the  Alps  and 
other  high  mountain  ranges  before  it  grew  dark.  Then 
there  came  on  a  violent  thunderstorm,  and  we  had  an 
opportunity  of  testing  the  truth  of  Byron's  description. 
I  went  out  into  the  darkness,  rain,  and  wind  to  get  a 
sight  of  it,  and  from  the  summit  saw  the  forked  liglit- 
ning  dart  along,  apparently  on  a  level  with  myself,  and 
the  two  great  lakes,  Zug  and  Lucerne,  come  out  like 
two  immense  mirrors  to  reflect  the  light,  and  then  dis- 


178  DIAEY  AND  COEBESPONDENCE. 

appear  again  in  the  darkness.  The  next  morning  the 
sun  rose  clear,  and  we  saw  all  the  immense  panorama 
of  mountains,  lakes,  forests,  and  cultivated  country 
come  into  view.  The  shadow  of  Eossberg  lay  purple 
on  the  blue  water  of  Zug,  and  the  colossal  shadow  of 
Rhigi  stretched  far  away  over  Lucerne.  It  is  impossi- 
ble to  suggest  by  any  words  the  unimaginable  beauty 
of  this  view.  .  .  . 

After  breakfast  we  descended  by  the  footpath  to  Kuss- 
nacht,  where  we  took  a  boat  to  Lucerne.  The  sail  on  the 
lake  was  exquisite.  I  sketched  Mount  Pilatus,  whose 
craggy  tops,  bare  of  all  vegetation,  pierced  the  morn- 
ing sky  like  sharp  spears.  .  .  .  We  were  about  an  hour 
in  Lucerne.  Then  at  two,  on  this  day  of  wonders,  be- 
gan our  second  sail,  in  the  steamer,  on  this  lake,  which 
Sir  James  Mackintosh  pronounces  the  most  beautiful  in 
the  world.  .  .  .  We  sailed  round  the  foot  of  the  Rhigi, 
touched  at  the  port  of  Schwytz,  saw  the  bare  rocky 
Mitres,  sailed  up  the  extraordinary  bay  of  Uri,  where 
mountains  descend  on  all  sides  sheer  into  the  water,  so 
that  not  even  a  footpath  can  be  formed  along  the  mar- 
gin of  the  lake.  We  landed  at  Fluellen,  drove  eleven 
miles  to  Amsteg,  and  after  supper  walked  twelve  more 
to  Wesen.  This  walk  was  a  constant  ascent  on  the  St. 
Gothard  road,  and  between  veiy  lofty  mountains.  We 
slept  in  a  Swiss  tavern,  where  we  woke  the  people  up 
at  eleven.  .  .  . 

Interlaken,  September  9. 
We  have  arrived  here,  having  finished  our  walk  round 
the  Jungfrau.  In  these  six  days  we  have  walked,  by 
Murray,  130  English  miles,  by  the  guides  160.  Besides 
this  we  have  crossed  five  mountain  ridges,  amounting  in 
all  to  about  17,000  feet  of  ascent  and  descent. 

Chamounix,  September  13,  1849. 
It  is  strange  how  in  this  heart  of  Europe  I  am  cut 
off  from  all  familiar  thoughts  and  things.     There  seems 


EUROPE.  179 

to  be  nothing  near  me  but  Nature.  I  am  in  her  ele- 
ment. Of  the  revolutions  going  on  around  me  I  hear 
and  know  nothing.  By  accident  I  read  in  a  little  Savoy 
newspaper  that  Venice  has  surrendered,  that  Hungary 
is  conquered.  .  .  .  Neither  my  own  business  nor  the 
world's  history  affects  me.  In  this  clear  Alpine  air 
the  distant  mountains  seem  close  at  hand,  but  the 
nearest  social  facts  seem  far  away.  The  atmosphere  of 
the  hills  is  a  telescope  with  which  we  look  at  nature 
through  the  eyepiece,  but  at  the  world  through  the  ob- 
ject glass  ;  one  comes  much  nearer,  the  other  recedes  to 
an  illimitable  distance.  But  there  is  one  constant  ex- 
ception to  this :  those  whom  I  love  are  nearer  to  me 
than  ever. 

I  went  into  the  little  Lutheran  church  in  Untersee, 
and  while  I  sat  there  the  memory  of  dear  Herman 
came  over  me  so  strongly  that  I  thought  my  heart  would 
break.  Those  good  German  Madchen  who  sat  near  me, 
and  noticed  my  convulsive  sobs,  must  have  thought  me 
some  great  sinner,  awakened  and  convinced  by  the 
powerful  preaching,  —  I,  meantime,  not  knowing  the 
meaning  of  a  word  the  preacher  said. 

Monday  the  sun  shone  bright,  and  we  set  oif  on  foot, 
for  the  Gemmi  Pass.  .  .  .  We  walked  twenty-four  miles 
to  the  town  of  Kandersteg,  which  lies  high  beneath 
the  glaciers  and  snow-covered  mountains  of  the  Glarus 
Alp.  Tuesday  morning  we  rose  at  five,  and  set  off  at 
once  to  ascend  the  Gemmi.  It  took  us  two  hours  of 
constant  climbing  to  reach  the  top  of  the  first  ascent 
behind  Kandersteg.  Our  party  was  six :  Mr.  Cordner 
of  Montreal  and  I,  who  carry  one  knapsack  alternately 
between  us  ;  two  Mr.  Frothinghams  of  Montreal,  who 
carry  their  knapsack  alternately ;  a  guide  for  the  day, 
and  another  who  has  come  with  us  from  Rhigi,  and 
carries  our  cloaks.  After  crossing  a  valley,  the  type  of 
desolation,  surrounded  by  bare  cliffs,  glaciers  above,  and 
ruins  of  rocks  below,  we  ascend  another  ridge  of  rocks, 


180  DIABY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

and  pass  on  and  up,  round  a  lake  which,  has  no  outlet 

for  its  freezing  waters,  and  then,  climbing  a  ridge  of 

rocks,    the   whole    chain   of   Savoy   Alps   is   in  view, 

Monte  Rosa,   Mont  Cervin,  and   the   rest,  white  with 

eternal  snow.  .  .  . 

Geneva,  Sunday,  Sq)tember  16. 

Friday  dawned  clear,  and  from  my  window,  at  half 
past  four,  I  saw  the  clear  outline  of  the  monarch  of 
mountains  and  his  attendant  summits.  I  watched  them 
till  they  became  rosy  in  the  early  sunlight.  At  eight 
we  set  out  for  the  Cross  of  Flegere,  a  height  on  the 
other  side  of  the  valley,  from  which  you  have  a  fine 
view  of  Mont  Blanc  and  the  surrounding  peaks. 

The  view  from  that  summit  I  trust  I  shall  never  for- 
get as  long  as  I  live.  Sitting  on  the  edge  of  this  steep 
declivity  we  looked  over  the  valley,  not  more  than  a 
mile  wide,  to  the  accumulation  of  peaks  and  mountains 
of  which  Mont  Blanc  is  the  highest  and  central  eleva- 
tion. His  bare  glittering  summit  receded  far  up  and 
beyond  all  the  rest,  being  eight  or  ten  miles  away  from 
us,  and  two  thousand  feet  higher  than  the  gigantic 
peaks  and  domes  which  surround  him.  A  white  vapor, 
like  a  fleecy  cloud,  kept  rising  from  his  crest ;  this  was 
the  new-fallen  snow  blown  off  by  the  storms  which 
roar  forever  around  him.  ...  I  sat  with  all  this  vast 
picture  of  ice,  snow,  granite  peaks,  glaciers,  and  water- 
falls before  me,  —  sat  for  an  hour  or  more,  wondering 
if  indeed  this  was  the  Mont  Blanc  of  my  school-boy 
studies,  of  my  childhood's  dreams.  The  intense  beauty 
of  the  scene  exceeded  all  that  I  ever  imagined.  These 
great  peaks  seemed  so  close  at  hand,  this  vast  glacier 
was  spread  under  my  eye  like  a  map.  Mont  Blanc,  in- 
deed, remained  like  a  monarch,  inaccessible,  remote. 
We  came  close  to  the  kings  and  princes  of  his  court, 
but  the  emperor  held  himself  aloof.  .  .  . 


EUROPE.  181 

Cologne,  September  27. 

On  Monday  we  sailed  the  length  of  Lake  Leman, 
walked  six  miles  back  to  Vevay,  and  drove  part  way  to 
Swiss  Freiburg.  We  spent  some  hours  of  Tuesday  in 
Freiburg,  and  went  on  to  Berne,  which  we  left  next 
day ;  passed  the  Jura  through  the  gap,  spent  six  hours 
at  Basel,  went  on  to  Freiburg  in  Baden,  and  from  there 
to  Heidelberg  and  Frankfort ;  sailed  down  the  Ehine  to 
Bingen,  from  there  to  Coblenz  and  Bonn,  and  thence  to 
Cologne. 

These  are  the  statistics,  the  skeleton  of  my  days. 
But  how  shall  I  give  you  the  color,  or  even  the  rude 
outline  of  all  the  grace  and  beauty  I  have  been  seeing 
and  enjoying  ? 

Berne,  with  its  old  minster,  and  lovely  walks  be- 
neath chestnut  and  walnut  and  linden  trees,  but  above 
all  with  its  snowy  Alps  in  the  distance,  will  deserve  a 
longer  paragraph  than  I  have  time  to  give  it  now.  .  .  . 
We  arrived  just  before  sunset,  and  saw  a  rosy  collection 
of  clouds,  but  not  the  Alps,  which  were  cloud-covered. 
Next  morning  I  was  out  before  sunrise,  and  from  the 
high  platform  behind  the  minster  I  saw  the  white  sum- 
mits of  the  Alps  growing  rosy  in  the  early  light.  After 
breakfast  I  went  to  the  minster  and  ascended  to  the 
top,  as  is  my  wont,  bought  some  pictures,  saw  the  old 
clock  go  through  its  evolutions,  and  departed  for  Basel. 

I  had  determined  to  pay  a  visit  to  Dr.  DeWette  at 
Basel,  and  was  much  surprised  to  hear  that  he  had  died 
in  June.  I  did  not  hear  of  it  because  the  steamer  that 
brought  the  news  arrived  just  after  I  left  America,  and 
when  I  reached  Europe  it  had  ceased  to  be  news.  .  .  . 
Having  been  thinking  of  an  interview  with  him  it  gave 
me  a  shock  to  be  told,  when  I  asked  the  way  to  his 
house,  '•  Mais  il  est  mort  !  " 

.  .  .  There  is  a  very  old  church  at  Basel,  in  which 
the  Council  was  held  four  hundred  years  ago  at  which 
popes   were   elected   and   deposed.      The   furniture   is 


182  DIABY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

all  as  it  was,  except  that  the  bust  of  Erasmus  stands  in 
the  middle  of  the  room.  I  sat  on  the  old  benches,  and 
went  back  four  hundred  years,  and  considered  what 
opinion  I  should  give  about  the  pope  when  it  came  to 
my  turn.  Then  I  looked  at  Erasmus,  and  said,  "  What 
business  has  that  innovator  among  us  ?  "  Afterward  we 
went  into  the  crypt  under  the  minster,  and  went  back 
four  hundred  years  more,  for  that  was  built  in  the  elev- 
enth century.  I  paced  up  and  down  among  the  shadows, 
and  thought  with  alarm  that  in  four  hundred  years  a 
council  would  be  held  above  to  depose  a  pope.  I  had 
got  so  far  back  then  as  to  be  quite  out  of  sight  of  Eras- 
mus and  the  Eeformation. 

I  love  the  crypts  under  these  old  churches.  Solid, 
compact,  with  nothing  of  decoration,  they  seem  to  belong 
to  the  era  of  primitive  religion,  the  strong  faith  which 
dwelt  among  the  roots  of  things.  .  .  .  You  can  neither 
preach  nor  celebrate  mass  in  a  crypt,  but  on  its  solid 
columns  rests  the  church  in  which  the  pious  multitude 
pray,  and  the  organ  sounds  the  note  of  praise. 

At  Heidelberg  we  had  a  lovely  day.  This  grand  old 
castle  is  an  immense  pile,  not  ruined  by  time,  as  was 
Kenilworth  or  Conway,  but  destroyed  by  the  hand  of 
man,  torn  in  pieces  and  demolished  by  the  ruthless  policy 
of  kings  and  generals.  You  feel  pity  for  the  old  castle, 
and  wish  to  turn  away  your  eyes,  as  when  a  hero  is 
beaten  in  battle,  or  the  champion  of  a  hundred  fights  is 
utterly  vanquished. 

Sunday  evening,  September  30,  1849. 

The  chimes  of  the  Antwerp  minster  are  now  playing 
their  accustomed  tune  before  the  great  bell  strikes  nine. 
The  moon,  nearly  full,  illuminates  the  summit  of  the 
lofty  spire,  whose  light  tracery  I  see  through  my  win- 
dow. .  .  .  Alone  in  Antwerp,  I  am  happy  this  Sunday 
evening.  Not  a  soul  here  knows  me,  but  I  have  felt 
the  presence  and  love  of  God  to-night,  as  I  sat  in  the 
dimly  lighted  cathedral,  listening  to  the  organ,  looking 


EUROPE.  183 

up  to  the  arching  roof,  or  seeing  the  worshipers  come 
and  kneel  at  the  different  altars,  and  go  away  again.  .  .  . 

I  have  been  enjoying  Eubens  here.  His  best  pictures 
are  filled  with  life,  energy,  and  the  outflow  of  an  exuber- 
ant genius.  An  infinite  variety  prevails  in  his  works. 
Every  figure  has  its  own  character,  every  head  its  own 
expression.  Jews,  apostles,  soldiers,  women,  children, 
all  are  there  in  their  own  persons  and  style  of  being. 
The  effect  of  the  whole  is  of  a  rushing  tide  of  joyful 
life,  like  a  fine,  fresh,  clear,  airy  morning,  when  every 
one  feels  well. 

Loftier  and  purer  than  Eubens,  yet  eclipsed  by  the 
meteoric  splendor  of  his  genius,  the  paintings  of  Van- 
dyck  elevate  one's  nature.  I  cannot  but  love  and  rever- 
ence Vandyck,  so  noble,  so  dignified  is  his  whole  method 
of  art.  After  seeing  Eubens'  masterpieces  here  in  Ant- 
werp, I  retain  the  opinion  I  formed  in  England,  that 
Vandyck  is  the  nobler  artist.  .  .  . 

The  last  words  of  "Eleven  Weeks  in  Europe"  are 
characteristic.  The  steamer  arrived  at  East  Boston 
late  at  night,  and  the  passengers  knew  that  the  ferry- 
boats to  the  city  proper  stopped  their  trips  at  midnight. 
They  were  trying  to  persuade  the  admiralty  officer  to 
let  them  cross  in  the  boat  which  took  the  mails.  "  Just 
then,  looking  over  the  side,  I  saAv  a  skiff  glide  up  to  the 
vessel,  and  a  man  climbed  aboard.  He  had  come  for 
the  English  papers  for  the  newspaper  offices.  As  he 
went  back  with  his  bundle  into  his  skiff,  I  dropped 
after  him,  and  in  five  minutes  was  at  the  end  of  Long 
Wharf."  He  did  not  ask  himself  what  a  paternal  gov- 
ernment would  have  said  to  such  an  exceptional 
landing. 

H.    W.    BELLOWS    TO    J.    F.    0. 

New  York,  December  1,  1849. 
I  welcome  you  home  with  all  my  heart,  and  wish  I 
could  do  it  with  both  hands.     I  have  been  sick  these 


184  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

few  weeks  past,  or  I  should  have  written  you  the  mo- 
ment I  heard  of  your  arrival,  to  say  that  our  hemi- 
sphere was  glad  to  recover  its  equilibrium,  and  I  with 
itj  to  see  so  efficient  a  co-laborer  back. 

I  write  to  say  that  we  are  entirely  depending  upon 
your  invaluable  cooperation  in  the  "Inquirer."  .  .  . 
Osgood  and  I  have  the  whole  burden.  With  you  this 
would  be  no  great  affair.  Indeed  I  would  sooner  risk 
the  paper  upon  such  a  tripod  —  each  leg  doing  its  duty 
—  than  upon  a  centipede  foundation,  where  any  sense 
of  individual  responsibility  would  be  impossible,  and 
every  foot  might  "  claw  off." 

How  capital  your  "  House  that  Jack  built "  ^  was  ! 

TO    H.    W.    BELLOWS. 

Boston,  December  7,  1849. 

Dear  Brother,  —  I  thank  you  for  your  kind  wel- 
come home,  and  your  friendly  opinions  of  my  usefulness 
to  you. 

I  am  glad  to  hear  you  say  that  my  articles  are  needed 
in  the  "  Inquirer,"  and  useful  when  there. 

I  should  be  glad  to  write  in  the  way  of  systematic 
treatment  of  certain  subjects  of  theology  and  morals,  in 
series  of  articles  ;  only  I  fear  the  dullness  of  the  thing. 
Tell  me  how  many  people  complained  of  the  heaviness 
of  the  "  Inspiration  "  papers,  and  whether  any  number 
of  persons  say  they  have  received  good  from  them.  My 
tendency  is  to  look  at  things  all  round;  to  give  the 
astronomical  theory  of  every  subject,  giving  the  whole 
curve  of  the  comet,  and  not  a  picturesque  description  of 
the  phenomenon  in  its  most  interesting  phases.  All 
this,  I  own,  seems  heavy  for  a  paper. 

Again,  I  think  we  ought  to  do  justice  to  socialism,  — 

1  "The  House  that  Jack  built"  was  a  short  article  in  the  Chris- 
tian Inquirer,  suggested  by  the  tendency  of  the  time  to  write  reviews, 
and  reviews  of  reviews,  literature  thus  seeming  in  danger  of  becom- 
ing chiefly  criticism. 


EUROPE.  185 

to  say  a  word  in  favor  of  protective  unions,  model  lodg- 
ing-houses, etc. ;  and  to  distinguish  between  destructive 
and  constructive  socialism. 

TO  s.  s.  c. 

December  21,  1849. 

I  have  now  been  at  home  nearly  two  months,  and  al- 
ready my  European  tour  seems  floating  away  from  me 
into  thin  air,  as  something  I  have  dreamed,  and  not 
lived.  It  is  curious  how  the  two  ends  of  your  life  will 
draw  together  and  unite,  from  each  side  of  such  an 
episode. 

Such  a  journey  renews  one's  life.  We  have  much 
goods  laid  up  for  many  years,  and  the  soul  can  take  its 
fill.  One  can  go  into  the  chamber  of  the  memory,  and 
take  down  a  fine  picture  and  examine  it  anew  with  great 
delight. 


CHAPTEK  XI. 

MEADVILLE. 

To  a  young  American  of  curiosity  and  intelligence, 
the  first  voyage  across  the  Atlantic  and  subsequent 
journeys  in  Europe  are  both  tonic  and  stimulant. 
There  is  hardly  anything  to  be  compared  with  it  in 
the  experiences  of  other  men.  A  great  Englishman 
lately  said,  "I  should  like  to  be  an  American,  if  it 
were  only  that  it  must  be  such  fun  to  go  to  Europe." 
A  man  readjusts  his  persjoectives,  when  he  looks  at 
himself  and  his  old  life  across  the  ocean.  He  makes 
real,  for  all  after  life,  a  great  many  matters  of  history 
which  have  only  existed  in  imagination  before.  Notre 
Dame,  St.  Peter's,  and  the  Alps  are  different  to  him, 
for  all  time,  after  he  has  looked  upon  them.  It  infal- 
libly follows  that  a  man  of  large  life  and  courageous 
purpose  comes  back  from  his  first  European  tour  with 
plans  quite  ne^v,  both  in  regard  to  himself  and  to  his 
work  for  the  world.  This  happened  to  Mr.  Clarke  on 
his  return  from  his  flying  European  trip  of  the  summer 
of  1849.  That  happened  also  which  has  happened  to 
so  many  other  men  of  spirit,  that  he  overestimated  the 
new  physical  life  given  by  the  tonic  and  the  stimulant, 
and  that  he  could  not  keep  up  to  the  plans  which  he 
laid  out  for  himself  while  under  this  influence.  The 
little  diary  is  full  of  short  entries  which  show  how 
eagerly  he  was  at  work,  till  they  are  broken  by  this  brief 
memorandum :  — 

"  January  15,  1850.  Taken  sick  with  typhoid  fever. 
Confined  to  my  room  three  months  and  more." 


MEADVILLE.  187 

This  imprisonment  ends  only  on  the  24th  of  April, 
where  is  the  entry,  "Go  out  to  drive  round  the  Com- 
mon." On  the  1st  of  May  he  went  down  to  breakfast. 
The  3d  of  May  records,  "  Working  on  my  solar  micro- 
scope." The  4th  of  May  the  little  entry  is,  "  Rainy  and 
cloudy.  Reading 'Pendennis.'  Solar  microscope."  And 
then  follows  the  sad  memorandum,  "  Letter  to  B.  P. 
Winslow,  recommending  the  plan  of  selling  the  church 
and  investing  the  money."  This  plan  was  adopted; 
and  on  the  7th  of  May,  at  its  annual  meeting,  the 
Church  of  the  Disciples  recommended  to  its  trustees 
to  sell  the  church  in  which  they  had  worshiped. 

This  was  the  end  for  the  present  of  the  cheerful  and 
large  hopes  with  which  all  had  begun  so  eagerly  nine 
years  before.  On  the  26th  of  June  is  the  memoran- 
dum, "  Suddenly  taken  sick  with  lung  fever ; "  and 
again  he  seems  to  have  been  shut  up  for  some  weeks. 
On  the  11th  of  August  comes  the  entry,  "  Last  service 
in  the  Church  of  the  Disciples.  Eight  children  bap- 
tized. I  made  an  address.  Lord's  Supper.  Channing ; 
prayer."  (Probably  his  friend  W.  H.  Channing  made 
the  prayer.) 

At  this  point  his  ministerial  life  in  Boston  is  divided 
by  a  gap  of  more  than  three  years.  In  such  a  break-up 
of  hopes  and  plans  I  have  not  found  one  word  of  dis- 
couragement expressed  in  any  of  the  diaries  or  any  of 
the  letters.  Yet  it  would  be  hard  to  imagine  a  more 
severe  disappointment  than  the  physician's  announce- 
ment that  he  must  give  up  the  energetic  and  enterpris- 
ing work  which  engaged  him,  and  rest  himself  for  an 
indefinite  time.  He  had  overcome  the  difficulties  of  a 
beginning,  and  his  work  was  successful  on  all  sides. 
Yet  it  was  work  which  could  not  be  well  entrusted  to 
another;  and  there  certainly  seemed  danger  that  his 
favorite  plans  in  establishing  the  Church  of  tlie  Dis- 
ciples might  end  in  no  visible  results,  if  he  could  not 
himself  oversee  them.     Now  that  it  is  all  over,  it  is 


188  DIARY  AND  COBRESPONDENCE. 

easy  enough  for  us  to  see  that  he  filled  those  years  full. 
In  them  he  laid  the  foundation  for  much  of  the  after- 
work  for  which  he  is  now  most  fondly  remembered. 
And  the  publications  of  those  years,  and  their  other 
appeals  to  the  various  audiences  to  which  he  addressed 
himself,  give  no  sign  of  the  life  of  an  invalid  gaining 
strength  for  after-duty. 

The  pleasant  home  in  Boston  was  broken  up  ;  and  in 
August,  1850,  by  the  route  of  Bedford  Springs  and 
Pittsburgh,  the  family  went  to  Meadville,  Pennsyl- 
vania, the  residence  of  Mrs.  Clarke's  father. 

A  few  memoranda  of  dates  may  be  convenient. 

From  the  6th  of  January,  1851,  to  the  7th  of  Febru- 
ary, Mr.  Clarke  was  at  Washington,  D.  C. 

From  the  6th  of  May  to  the  16th  of  June,  the  time 
was  spent  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Clarke  in  a  visit  to  Louis- 
ville and  the  Mammoth  Cave  in  Kentucky.  In  the 
month  of  July  there  was  an  expedition  to  Niagara 
Falls.  In  September  Mr.  Clarke  visited  Boston,  and  in 
that  month  he  preached  at  the  Freeman  Place  Chapel. 

With  W.  H.  Channing  he  spent  some  days  at  E.  W. 
Emerson's  in  Concord,  the  three  friends  working  to- 
gether on  the  Memoir  of  Margaret  Fuller.  The  entry 
in  his  diary,  September  5th,  is,  "At  R.  W.  Emerson's. 
Spent  forenoon  in  Mr.  Alcott's  summer-house,^  reading 
Margaret  Fuller's  Italian  letters." 

After  his  return  from  Boston  in  1851,  he  was  asked 
to  become  for  a  time  the  pastor  of  the  church  in  Mead- 
ville. He  agreed  to  do  so ;  and  in  his  diary  for  Septem- 
ber 28,  he  says:  "To-day  I  begin  my  work  as  pastor 
of  this  Unitarian  society.  My  duties  will  be :  on  Sun- 
days, to  conduct  public  worship  and  to  give  lessons  in 
the  Sunday-school ;  on  week-days,  to  visit  the  parish, 
hold  meetings,  Bible-classes,  etc.  The  theological  stu- 
dents to  be  members  of  my  society." 

1  This  was  a  summer-house  built  for  Mr.  Emerson  by  Mr.  Alcott 
and  Mr.  Thoreau. 


MEADVILLE.  189 

In  October  he  went  to  Detroit  to  preach  the  sermon 
at  the  installation  of  Thomas  J.  Mumford,  thence  to 
Chicago  and  Milwaukee,  preaching  in  both  places,  and 
on  his  way  back  preaching  one  Sunday  in  Cleveland. 

It  is  clear  enough  that  Mr.  Clarke  enjoyed  the  regu- 
larity of  his  life  and  the  freedom  from  the  interruptions 
of  a  working  ministry  in  a  large  town.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  the  year  he  made  a  plan  for  the  year's  work, 
as  he  often  did  when  a  year  began.  This  time  he  had 
little  occasion  to  rebuke  himself  that  he  did  not  hold  to 
his  resolutions.  He  had  now  the  great  advantage  which 
results  from  a  regular  engagement  with  a  competent 
amanuensis. 

At  the  end  of  1851,  in  a  summary  with  which  he 
closes  the  diary,  he  says  :  — 

1.  I  have  this  year  taken  journeys  to  Washington  ;  to 
Cincinnati,  Louisville,  and  the  Mammoth  Cave  ;  to  Erie  ; 
to  Niagara,  Buffalo,  and  Kochester ;  to  Niagara  again 
with  Anna ;  to  Boston,  New  York,  Brooklyn  ;  to  Detroit, 
Chicago,  Milwaukee,  and  Cleveland  (seven  journeys  in 
all). 

2.  Publications :  — 

The  Christian  Doctrine  of  Forgiveness  of  Sin.  Bos- 
ton, 12mo. 

Chapter  in  Life  of  S.  M.  Fuller.^ 

Articles  in  "  Christian  Inquirer,"  viz. :  Deacon  Her- 
bert's Bible  -  class  ;    six   chapters.      Compromises   and 

1  About  this  book  there  is  a  curious  bit  of  literary  history.  It  was 
published  in  the  year  1852.  Curiosity  was  greatly  excited  about  it. 
It  was  the  work  of  three  writers  well  known  among  the  literary'  men 
of  New  England.  It  is  very  interesting  in  detail,  and,  as  miglit  have 
been  expected,  the  sale  was  large  and  rapid.  A  second  and  third  edi- 
tion were  hurried  through  tlie  press,  and  there  seemed  every  prosjiect 
of  a  wide  popularity  to  the  book,  when,  presto,  the  sale  stopped.  Nor 
has  it  ever  been  renewed. 

The  cause  was  easily  found.  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  was  published. 
"The  retail  book  market  never  can  take  two  enthusiasms  at  one 
time." 


190  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

their  Consequences.  A  Trip  to  Mammoth  Cave.  Six 
poems ;  letters,  etc. 

3.  Studies. 

I  have  read  a  few  books,  but  as  it  seems  to  me  very- 
few. 

The  home  to  which  Mr.  Clarke  went  for  recovery  of 
strength  was  in  the  town  of  Meadville,  in  the  northwest 
section  of  Pennsylvania.  It  is  a  picturesque  region, 
attractive  for  its  walks  and  drives,  and  especially  for 
rides  on  horseback,  over  the  hills. 

The  house  of  Mr.  Huidekoper,  where  the  family  spent 
the  greater  part  of  the  next  three  years,  was  a  rather 
large,  old-fashioned  dwelling,  with  an  extensive  lawn, 
containing  many  stately  forest  trees.  In  front  of  the 
house  was  a  long  piazza,  round  whose  pillars  sweet-brier 
and  climbing  roses  twined  themselves,  and  not  far  off 
great  beds  of  damask-roses  perfumed  the  air.  In  the 
early  morning  might  be  heard  the  tapping  of  little 
hoofs  over  the  piazza,  and  a  couple  of  young  pet  deer 
would  signal  to  the  master  of  the  house  that  they  had 
come  for  their  accustomed  piece  of  bread  and  the  touch 
of  his  friendly  hand. 

Mr.  Huidekoper  was  not  only  a  friend  to  animals,  but 
a  lover  of  children,  and  no  time  spent  in  giving  them 
pleasure  seemed  to  him  wasted.  Every  year  he  invited 
the  children  of  two  Sunday-schools  to  spend  the  J'ourth 
of  July  on  his  grounds,  and  to  bring  with  them  any 
near  relatives.  Sometimes  as  many  as  two  hundred 
persons  came.  If  mothers  brought  their  infants  they 
found  a  roomy  tent  ready  to  receive  them.  Games  were 
provided  for  children  of  different  ages.  Dinner  and 
supper  were  taken  under  the  shade  of  a  wide-spreading 
maple  tree.  The  children  had  a  long,  happy  day,  and 
before  sunset  all  were  again  safe  in  their  own  homes. 

But  one  of  the  pleasantest  things  to  Mr.  Clarke's 
children  in  the  Meadville  life  was  that  they  had  there 


MEADVILLE.  191 

SO  much  more  of  their  father's  society  than  was  i)Ossible 
in  Boston.  In  the  morning  one  of  them  had  an  arith- 
metic lesson  with  him  in  his  study.  Among  his  vahia- 
ble  qualilications  as  a  teacher  was  his  unlimited  pa- 
tience, and  this  scholar  cannot  recall  a  single  impatient 
word  at  these  lessons.  "  No  wonder  your  little  head  is 
puzzled,"  he  would  say  ;  "  my  big  head  is  puzzled  too, 
sometimes." 

For  the  entertainment  of  his  own  children  and  their 
cousins  he  constructed  a  little  puppet-show  and  enacted 
plays  for  them.  But  most  delightful  of  all  were  the 
stories  he  told  them  after  they  were  in  bed  at  night, 
some  of  these  being  taken  from  Scott's  novels,  or  from 
the  shorter  stories  of  German  romance. 

Mr.  Clarke's  study  was  in  a  wing  of  the  main  house, 
and  had  one  door  opening  into  the  parlor  and  another 
on  the  long  piazza.  It  was  a  quiet  place,  and  had  once 
been  the  family  school-room.  While  the  western  window 
and  door  looked  across  an  intervale  to  the  hills  beyond 
French  Creek,  on  the  other  side  of  the  room  was  a  win- 
dow through  which,  in  the  summer,  sprays  of  a  climl> 
ing  rose  entered,  and  opened  their  blossoms  above  his 
writing  table.  In  this  pleasant  retreat  he  wrote  the 
books  of  which  he  has  spoken,  and  later,  "  The  Chris- 
tian Doctrine  of  Prayer,"  *  "  Eleven  Weeks  in  Europe," 
a  translation  of  Hase's  "  Leben  Jesu,"  beside  many  ar- 
ticles for  the  "  Christian  Examiner,"  "  Christian  In- 
quirer," and  other  periodicals.  His  writing,  however, 
was  not  always  done  in  the  time  of  roses,  but  often  in 
the  season  of  snowstorms  and  a  low  thermometer. 

While  in  Meadville  he  much  enjoyed  his  intercourse 
with  the  theological  students.  One  of  these.  Rev.  C.  A. 
Staples,  has  kindly  furnished  us  with  his  recollections 
of  that  period. 

"  I  was  at  ^leadville  durinic  the  years  of  which  you 
speak,  and  saw  a  good  deal  of  ^Iv.  Clarke.  He  preached 
1  The  Essay  on  Prayer  was  not  finished  until  early  in  1854 


192  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

Sit  the  church,  and  occasionally  visited  the  school.  Some 
of  the  students  spent  two  or  three  hours  a  week  with 
him  at  Mr.  Huidekoper's,  in  gymnastic  exercises,  read- 
ing, and  conversation.  Sometimes  he  invited  several 
of  us  to  pass  the  evening  with  him,  when  he  would  talk 
about  books,  pictures,  and  subjects  that  were  interest- 
ing him.  I  remember  that  on  one  occasion  he  read  to 
us  Theodore  Parker's  sermon  on  '  Old  Age,'  which  had 
just  been  preached. 

"  Mr.  Clarke  was  deeply  interested  at  that  time  in  the 
anti-slavery  cause,  and,  before  leaving  for  Europe  [in 
1852],  gave  an  address  upon  the  subject  in  the  court 
house,  on  a  week-day  evening.  I  think  he  did  this 
without  any  invitation  from  the  people,  as  a  public  tes- 
timonial of  his  abhorrence  of  slavery,  and  to  free  his 
mind  and  conscience  upon  the  matter.  He  also  gave 
one  or  more  addresses  in  the  church  on  Sunday  even- 
ings, upon  the  same  subject. 

"  Teachers'  meetings  were  held  by  him,  in  which  he 
gave  pleasant  talks  upon  the  Epistles  of  Paul  and  the 
Gospels.  His  preaching  at  this  time  was  very  earnest 
and  interesting,  full  of  apt  illustrations,  and  appealed 
to  the  deepest  spiritual  experiences.  It  was  stimulat- 
ing to  our  minds  and  hearts,  and  gave  great  satisfaction 
to  many  of  the  students,  with  whom  he  was  very  popu- 
lar. He  showed  a  kindly  interest  in  us,  and  gladly 
aided  us  in  our  studies  whenever  we  sought  his  assist- 
ance. He  seemed  to  live  in  a  world  of  pleasant  memo- 
ries and  high  thoughts,  and  it  was  an  inspiration  to  all 
good  purposes  to  meet  him.  I  think  his  influence  upon 
those  young  men  who  were  most  intimate  with  him  and 
were  especiall}^  drawn  to  him  was  very  marked,  and  ap- 
peared in  their  aims  and  their  work  in  after  years." 


MEADVILLE.  193 


TO  MRS.  A.  F.  C. 
Stkamek  Ohio,  Buffalo,  August  12,  1851. 
A.  and  I  are  on  our  way  back  to  Meadville  from  Niag- 
ara Falls,  where  we  have  been  piussing  five  and  a  half 
days.  We  were  at  the  Clifton  House  (Canada  side), 
where  we  had  the  falls  in  our  eyes  all  day  long,  and  in 
our  ears  all  night.  What  think  you  of  being  serenaded 
for  two  and  a  half  hours  by  Jenny  Lind,  with  Niagara 
for  the  undersong?  On  Sunday  evening  ;Miss  Lind 
sang  German  and  Italian  hymns  from  eight  and  a  half 
till  eleven,  only  ceasing  while  she  played  on  the  piano 
various  pleasant  airs.  Her  room  was  directly  below 
ours,  and  we  heard  every  note.  ...  I  am  to  preach  at 
Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  the  last  two  Sundays  in  August.  Per- 
haps I  shall  go  to  Boston  for  a  visit. 

TO    A.    H.    C. 

Boston,  September  7,  1851. 

To-day  has  been  quite  warm.  Before  breakfast,  I 
went  to  Braman's  Baths,  and  swam  in  the  river. 

I  preached  for  Bobbins  morning  and  evening,  our 
own  people  being  invited  freely  to  attend.  After  even- 
ing service  we  went  into  the  vestry,  and  had  a  com- 
munion service  for  the  Church  of  the  Disciples.  About 
sixty  were  present  at  it.  I  shook  hands  in  the  course 
of  the  day  with  some  hundred  persons.  .  .  . 

September  15,  1851. 
How  much  I  wish  that  you  could  have  been  here  yes- 
terday. The  Church  of  the  Disciples  met  in  the  Wash- 
ingtonian  Hall,  liromfield  Street.  The  hall  was  filled 
with  our  own  people;  all  the  most  near  and  dear.  It 
was  delightful  to  see  them  again.  Tbeodoro  Barker 
and  many  of  his  people  were  there,  and  some  six  or 
eii^ht  colored  people,  including  Lewis  Haydon.  (Parker, 
Hayden,    Walcutt,    Dr.   liowditch,    and    l^rentiss    were 


194  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE 

called  out  just  after  tlie  sermon  began,  to  attend  to  a 
slave  mother  and  child  just  arrived  in  a  vessel  from 
Virginia.)  After  church  some  thirty  or  forty  came  and 
spoke  to  me. 

I  went  to  the  marble  manufacturer,  Carey's,  on  Satur- 
day, and  selected  a  little  white  cross  and  marble  foot- 
stone  for  our  darling's  resting-place.  .  .  .  On  the  cross 
piece  I  had  the  one  word  "  Herman  "  engraved,  and  on 
the  foot-stone,  "  Dear  Boy."  .  .  . 

W.    H.    CHAXXING    TO    J.    F.    C. 

Did  I  ever  tell  you  that  the  last  time  I  saw  your 
sweet  Herman  was  as  he  stood,  in  the  sunshine  on 
the  doorstep,  holding  out  to  me  Plato's  "divine  dia- 
logues"? It  was  but  a  few  days  before  his  death. 
Ever  since  I  seem  to  see  him  in  an  open  portal  where 
the  glory  streams  all  over  him,  reaching  forth  the 
"  Phsedo,"  with  a  light  as  of  the  skies  in  his  mild  blue 
eyes,  and  his  lips  half  parted. 

In  May,  1852,  Mr.  Clarke  attended  a  Unitarian  Con- 
vention at  Cincinnati,  and  during  this  journey  lectured 
and  preached. 

Early  in  June,  with  Mrs.  Clarke  and  their  eldest 
daughter,  he  went  to  New  York  and  Boston.  On  the 
10th  of  June,  he  says  in  his  diary  "  call  with  Anna  and 
Lilian  at  the  Irving  House,  and  see  Kossuth." 

On  the  13th  of  June,  he  preached  in  Freeman  Place 
Chapel,  Boston.  On  the  16th  the  entry  is,  "  See  Church 
of  Disciples,  and  discuss  the  matter  of  its  renewal." 
And  on  the  following  Sunday  he  again  preached  in 
Freeman  Place  Chapel. 

After  his  return  from  Boston  in  1852,  he  resumed  his 
work  in  connection  with  the  church  and  the  theological 
school  at  Meadville,  and  continued  it  until  October  13th, 
when,  in  accordance  with  the  advice  of  Dr.  James  Jack- 
son  and   Dr.   Samuel  Cabot,  of   Boston,  he  and   Mrs. 


MEADVILLE.  195 

Clarke  went  to  Europe,  to  spend  the  winter  in  tlie 
south  of  Italy. 

The  three  children  were  left  at  Meadville,  with  their 
grandfather  and  their  kind  aunt,  Miss  Huidekoper,  so 
that  it  was  unnecessary  for  the  travelers  to  carry  with 
them  any  anxieties  on  their  account.  They  sailed  from 
New  York  on  the  20th  of  October,  on  the  Cunard 
steamer  "Asia." 

In  Europe  their  route  was  through  Paris,  Nice,  and 
Florence,  and  from  Leghorn,  by  steamer,  to  Naples. 
At  Florence,  on  the  30th  of  December,  the  entry  is, 
"  Spent  two  evenings  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Robert  Brown- 
ing." 

They  spent  the  month  of  January  in  Naples  and  the 
neighborhood,  and  in  February  went  by  land  to  Kome, 
where  they  arrived  on  the  13th.  They  remained  in 
Eome  till  the  1st  of  April,  when  they  went  by  voiture 
to  Florence.  On  the  15th  they  left  Florence,  were 
nearly  a  month  in  the  north  of  Italy,  crossed  the  Alps 
by  the  St.  Gothard  Pass,  and  on  the  13th  of  May,  1853, 
were  at  Lucerne.  Thence  their  route  was  down  the 
Rhine  by  slow  stages,  and  they  arrived  in  London  on 
the  1st  of  June.  They  sailed  for  Boston  on  the  25th 
of  June,  and  on  Sunday,  the  10th  of  July,  IMr.  Clarke 
preached  in  Boston,  meeting  his  friends  at  the  Lord's 
Supper  in  the  forenoon  of  that  day. 

The  following  lines  record  the  impression  made  upon 
him  by  the  Mediterranean  shore :  — 

RIVIERA  DI  PONENTE. 


Oil  this  lovely  western  shore,  where  no  tenipost.s  rape  and  roar, 
Over  olive-bearing-  mountains,  by  the  deep  and  violet  sea, 
There,  throug-h  each  lon<^  happy  day,  windin^c  slowly  on  our  way, 
Travelers  from  across  the  ocean,  toward  Italia  journeyed  we, — 

Each  lonj;  day,  that,  richer,  fairer, 

Showed  the  charmiug  Riviera. 


196  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 


There  black  war-ships  doze  at  anchor,  in  the  bay  of  Villaf ranca ; 
Eagle-like,  gray  Esa,  clinging  to  its  rocky  perch,  looks  down  ; 
And  iipon  the  mountain  dim,  ruined,  shattered,  stern  and  grim, 
Turbia  sees  us  through  the  ages,  with  its  austere  Roman  frown,  — 

While  we  climb,  where  cooler,  rarer 

Breezes  sweep  the  Riviera. 


Down  the  hillside  steep  and  stony,  through  the  old  streets  of  Men- 
tone, 
Quiet,  half-forgotten  city  of  a  drowsy  prince  and  time, 
Through  the  mild  Italian  midnight,  rolls  upon  the  wave  the  moon- 
light. 
Murmuring  in  our  dreams  the  cadence  of  a  strange  Ligurian  rhyme,  — 
Rhyme  in  which  each  heart  is  sharer, 
Journeying  on  the  Riviera. 

IV. 

When  the  morning  air  comes  purer,  creeping  up  in  our  vettura, 

Eastward  gleams  a  rosy  tumult  with  the  rising  of  the  day ; 

Toward  the  north,  with  gradual  changes,  steal  along  the  mountain 

ranges 
Tender  tints  of  warmer  feeling,  kissing  all  their  peaks  of  gray ; 
And  far  south  the  waters  wear  a 
Smile  along  the  Riviera. 


Helmed  with  snow,  the  Alpine  giants  at  invaders  look  defiance, 
Gazing  over  nearer  summits,  with  a  fixed,  mysterious  stare, 
Down  along  the  shaded  ocean,  on  whose  edge  in  tremulous  motion 
Floats  an  island,  half -transparent,  woven  out  of  sea  and  air  ;  — 

For  such  visions,  shaped  of  air,  are 

Frequent  on  our  Riviera. 


He  whose  mighty  earthquake-tread  all  Europa  shook  with  dread. 
Chief  whose  infancy  was  cradled  in  that  old  Tyrrhenic  isle. 
Joins  the  shades  of  trampling  legions,  bringing  from  remotest  regions 
Gallic  fire  and  Roman  valor,  Cimbric  daring,  Moorish  guile, 

Guests  from  every  age  to  share  a 

Portion  of  this  Riviera. 


MEADVILLE.  197 


VII. 
Here  the  Afric  brain,  whose  story  fills  the  centuries  with  its  glory, 
Moulding-  Gaul  and  Carthaginian  into  one  all-conquering  band, 
With  his  tusked  monstei-s  grumbling,  'mid  the  alien  snow-drifts  stum- 
bling, 
Comes  an  avalanche  of  ruin,  thundering  from  that  frozen  laud 
Into  vales  their  sons  declai-e  are 
Sunny  as  our  Riviera. 

VIII. 
Tired  of  these,  the  mighty  mother  sought  among  her  types  another 
Stamp  of  blended  saint  and  hero,  only  seen  on  earth  before 
In  the  luminous  aureole  shining  from  a  maiden's  soul 
Through  four  hundred  sluggisli  years ;   till  again  on  Nizza's  shore 

Comes  the  hero  of  Caprera 

Born  upon  our  Riviera. 


Thus  forever  in  our  musing  comes  man's  spirit,  interfusing 
Thought  of  poet  and  of  hero  with  the  landscape  and  the  sky ; 
And  this  shore,  no  longer  lonely,  lives  the  life  of  romance  only ;  — 
Gauls  and  Moors  and  northern  Sea-kings,  all  are  gliding  ghost-like  by : 

So  with  Nature  man  is  sharer 

Even  on  the  Riviera. 

On  the  28tli  of  July  Mr.  Clarke  was  again  in  ^load- 
ville,  where  he  resumed  his  former  duties  in  connection 
with  the  church,  preaching  regularly  until  after  the 
first  Sunday  in  October,  when  he  left  for  Boston. 

The  tie  which  bound  him  and  the  Church  of  the  Dis- 
ciples together  had  not  been  broken  by  his  absence. 
During  the  years  of  separation  he  received  letters  from 
his  church  friends,  and  he  wrote  letters  to  them,  to  be 
read  at  their  communion  services.  Through  all  dis- 
couragements, both  the  people  and  their  pastor  had 
held  fast  to  the  hope  that  in  time  they  might  again 
unite  and  revive  the  work  which  had  been  so  sud- 
denly interrupted. 


198  DIAEY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

Nice,  Piedmont,  December  4,  1852. 
To  the  Members  of  the  Church  of  the  Disciples,  assem- 
bled together  January  2,  1853. 

My  dear  Friends,  Brethren  and  Sisters,  —  I  write 
this  letter  amid  green  leaves  and  fioAvers,  roses  in  full 
bloom,  orange  and  lemon  trees  covered  with  fruit,  olive 
trees  with  silver  leaves  like  Avillows  in  June.  You  will 
receive  it  amid  frosts  and  ice,  outward  Nature  rigid 
with  the  stern  aspect  of  a  Kew  England  winter.  But 
it  is  the  state  of  the  heart  which  makes  summer  or 
winter,  and  I  hope  it  will  be  all  summer  in  your  hearts. 

The  orange  trees  which  are  growing  round  us  here  in 
all  the  gardens  remind  me  of  what  George  Herbert 
says,  wishing  that  he  could  be  like  the  orange  tree, 
"  that  busy  plant,"  and  never  want  fruit  for  his  Master. 
For  the  orange  bears  fruit,  it  is  said,  all  the  year,  and 
has  on  it  at  the  same  time  blossoms,  green  fruit  and 
ripe.  Happy  the  man  who,  with  perpetual  summer  in 
his  heart,  can  be  always  bearing  fruit  and  always  cov- 
ered with  blossoms ;  whose  life  is  always  in  its  spring, 
its  summer,  and  its  autumn  ;  who  can  keep  his  youthful 
feelings  with  his  manly  strength  of  action  and  his  ma- 
ture wisdom.  For  him  alone  can  the  orange  tree  be 
the  suitable  symbol. 

But  it  is  the  beautiful  thing  in  Christian  experi- 
ence that  the  highest  attainments  of  saints  are  felt  and 
understood  by  the  humblest  and  lowliest  Christian  as 
realities,  though  as  realities  in  their  germ  ;  and  so,  if 
George  Herbert,  or  Madam  Guyon,  or  St.  Theresa,  or 
Dr.  Channing  utter  the  noblest  aspirations  of  their 
souls,  the  chord  of  Christian  experience  vibrates  in 
harmony  therewith  in  every  Christian  soul.  Thus  we 
can  all  feel  that  it  is  no  imagination,  but  something 
very  possible  for  every  one  of  us  to  have  a  perpetual 
summer  in  our  hearts,  and  to  bear  fruit  without  ceasing 
for  our  Master.  For  this,  in  fact,  God  destined  us  when 
he  called  us  to  be  Christians. 


MEADVILLE.  199 

But  how  shall  we  attain  this  ?  The  answer  I  read 
to-day  in  the  Epistle  of  Paul  to  the  Romans.  The  gos- 
pel is  God's  power  unto  salvation  upon  all  who  believe, 
beginning  and  ending  with  faith.  We  are  justified, 
redeemed,  and  saved  by  faith.  .  .  .  When  Paul  wrote, 
he  wrote  to  Gentile  and  to  Jew.  We  are  Gentiles  and 
Jews  still,  needing  to  take  to  ourselves  the  same  in- 
struction, and  to  translate  into  the  language  of  our  own 
day  the  same  warnings  and  promises.  .  .  .  We  too 
need  a  power  of  God  unto  salvation,  a  perpetual  sweet- 
ness in  the  heart,  that  we  may  bear  fruit  every  day  to 
God  and  to  Christ. 

It  is  by  faith  that  this  must  come.  The  Christian 
life  is  a  life  of  faith  throughout,  in  its  origin,  progress, 
and  termination  ;  in  its  root,  branch,  flower,  and  fruit. 
Faith  is  the  open  eye  with  which  we  see  God.  .  .  . 
It  is  faith  in  a  Divine  goodness,  in  an  infinite  fatherly 
tenderness,  in  a  blessed  fullness  of  salvation,  which 
softens  the  hard,  and  melts  the  frozen,  heart.  We  love 
God  when  we  see  his  loveliness  ;  we  love  Christ  when 
we  trust  to  him  as  a  Saviour ;  we  love  man  when  we 
have  faith  in  man's  capacity  for  excellence.  We  can 
only  love  ourselves  in  a  true  way  when  we  can  believe 
in  the  destiny  God  has  offered  us,  and  feel  the  work 
which  he  has  done  in  our  hearts. 

This,  my  friends,  is  the  best  message  I  can  send  you 
from  this  distant  land  ;  I  have  found  nothing  better, 
nothing  deeper,  than  this  truth,  which  grows  clearer  to 
me  every  day  and  year.  Among  friends,  amid  the  joys 
and  affections  of  home,  it  nuikes  them  more  rich  and 
dear;  away  from  home,  on  the  other  side  of  the  world, 
it  surrounds  the  soul  with  a  heavenly  home.  In  hours 
of  trial  and  bereavement,  trust  in  a  Divine  Providence 
is  our  only  support,  as  many  of  you  well  know.  Look- 
ing forward  to  progress  in  knowledge,  to  growth  of 
character,  to  a  fuller  activity,  what  can  support  hope, 
so  often  baffled,  but  faith  ?     And  at  the  table  of  the 


200  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

Master,  in  our  consciousness  of  unworthiness,  it  is  faith, 
in  his  love  which  enables  us  to  draw  near  and  sit  at  his 
feet,  and  feel  ourselves  his  friends. 

In  thinking  of  you  thus  met  together  at  the  begin- 
ning of  a  new  year,  I  cannot  but  ask  myself  whether  I 
shall  be  permitted  before  its  end  to  unite  with  you 
again.  Shall  we  be  together,  as  in  times  past,  learners 
in  the  school  of  Jesus  ?  I  look  forward  to  it  now  with 
more  hope  than  hitherto.  Yet  this  and  all  other  per- 
sonal interests  I  desire  to  leave  to  that  Providence  who 
has  wisely  directed  my  way  thus  far,  and  only  pray 
that  no  willfulness  of  choice  on  my  part  may  lead  me  to 
•resist  his  leading  hand. 

I  am  here  apart  from  all  communion  of  worship,  but 
I  feel  myself  more  than  ever  at  home  in  the  great  uni- 
versal church  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  In  that  church  is  one 
Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism.  Heresies  and  schisms  are 
unknown  in  it.  Its  creed  is  a  trust  in  God  the  Father, 
and  love  to  man  the  brother.  Its  worship  is  obedience 
and  benevolence,  doing  good  and  growing  good.  From 
this  church  no  one  can  excommunicate  or  exclude  us 
except  ourselves. 

May  Grod  bless  and  keep  you  forever.  Your  bro- 
ther, James  Fkeeman  Clarke. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE    CHURCH    OF    THE    DISCIPLES. 

On  Mr.  Clarke's  return  to  Boston  he  preached  several 
times  in  the  Young  Men's  Hall,  on  Bedford  Street,  and 
afterwards  in  Williams  Hall ;  and  after  earnest  confer- 
ences in  regard  to  the  renewal  of  regular  church  ser- 
vices and  activities,  it  was  decided  that  the  Church  of 
the  Disciples  should  be  reestablished  on  the  same  basis 
as  at  the  beginning. 

On  the  1st  of  January,  1854,  Mr.  Clarke  began  anew 
the  pastorate  which  ended  only  with  his  life. 

For  most  of  the  thirty-five  years  of  this  renewed 
church  activity,  INIr.  Clarke  conducted  the  religious 
services  on  Sunday  morning ;  sometimes  also  giving 
Sunday  evening  courses  of  lectures.  He  generally  had 
a  large  class  under  his  personal  guidance  in  his  after- 
noon Sunday-school.  This  school  collected  three  or  four 
hundred  children,  many  of  them  of  foreign  nationalities, 
from  all  parts  of  Boston.  To  give  to  these  children  a 
happy  Sunday  afternoon,  that,  if  they  gained  no  other 
good,  they  might  at  least  learn  the  lesson  of  love,  — 
this  was  one  of  his  central  hopes  for  this  school.  And 
it  was  not  disappointed. 

Some  months  after  his  death,  a  man  whom  I  scarcely 
knew  approached  me  in  a  street  car,  and  asked  me 
eagerly  if  it  were  true  that  Dr.  Clarke  was  dead.  Wlien 
I  told  him  it  was,  he  expressed  the  most  serious  grief: 
"  If  only  I  could  have  seen  liim  once  again  !  "  But  it 
proved  that  he  had  not  seen  him  for  twenty  years,  — 


202  DIAEY  AXD  COEBESPOXDEXCE. 

not  since  lie  was  in  the  Sunday-school  of  the  Church  of 
the  Disciples.  I  tried  to  draw  from  him  the  secret  of 
his  sorrow  for  this  death,  and  to  find  what  was  the  cen- 
tral lesson  which  he  had  gained  from  Mr.  Clarke.  "  Oh, 
if  YOU  knew,  sir,  how  good  he  was  to  us  boys  !  We  had 
such  a  good  time  there  I  How  I  wish  you  could  have 
heard  him  tell  us  stories  at  Christmas  !  Did  you  ever 
hear  him  tell  a  story  ?  ''  There  was  no  memory  of  any 
scientific  theology.  But  it  was  clear  that,  for  that  boy 
at  least.  Mr.  Clarke  had  wrought  the  miracle  which  he 
once  proposed  as  an  aim  for  one  of  his  teachers :  ''  If 
your  scholars  have  learned  the  lesson  of  love,  —  ^hy, 
that  is  the  great  lesson  of  life.-' 

Every  Wednesday,  again,  the  church  met  in  its  regu- 
lar social  meeting.  In  the  theory  of  the  church,  I  think 
he  attached  even  more  importance  to  this  meeting  than 
to  those  of  Sunday.  That  is.  he  would  have  said  that 
in  our  social  order  the  Sunday  meetings  would  take  care 
of  themselves,  but  that  this  Wednesday  meeting  was 
distinctive,  and  belonged  to  the  very  life  of  the  Church 
of  the  Disciples.  The  professional  reader  may  wonder 
how  the  interest  of  such  a  meeting  was  preserved.  The 
answer  is  that  it  was  virtually  a  club,  containing  in  its 
membership  a  large  number  of  sensible  and  public- 
spirited  men  and  women,  who  took  in  hand  here  every 
matter  which  the  life  of  Boston  at  the  time  suggested. 
If  an  '•  outside  barbarian  "  from  England  or  France  ar- 
rived in  Boston,  coming  to  study  prisons,  or  botany,  or 
pauperism,  or  education,  he  would  be  very  apt  to  turn 
up  at  the  Wednesday  evening  meeting.  If  there  were  a 
fire  at  Portland  or  in  St.  John,  and  money  or  clothing 
were  needed,  the  matter  would  be  practically  discussed 
in  the  Wednesday  meeting.  If  Mr.  Polk,  or  Mr.  Pierce, 
or  ^Ir.  Buchanan  had  committed  the  nation  to  some  new 
imbecility  or  infamy,  the  Wednesday  meeting  took  cog- 
nizance of  it,  in  discussion  or  perhaps  in  action.  The 
Wednesday  evening  meeting  was  not  so  transcendental 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  DISCIPLES.  203 

but  that  it  could  send  rifles  to  Kansas  ;  ^  it  was  not  so 
practical  but  that  it  could  discuss  free-will  and  fore- 
knowledge. 

In  his  own  description  of  these  meetings,  written  after 
they  had  continued  for  many  years,  Mr.  Clarke  says :  — 

"  All  is  informal  conversation  ;  we  have  no  speech- 
making,  we  sit  in  a  circle,  and  no  one  rises  to  speak. 
The  meetings  have  educated  the  church  to  thought  and 
its  expression.  We  do  not  hear  at  them  any  religious 
commonplaces,  but  each  man  or  woman  says  something 
to  the  point." 

This  is  perhaps  an  overstatement,  but  it  shows  how 
good  a  listener  he  was.  He  never  heard  any  common- 
places, because  in  his  cordial  sympathy  he  often  made 
more  of  what  was  said  to  him  than  another  hearer 
would  have  done. 

The  determination  to  "  do  something  about  it,"  which, 
from  the  nature  of  the  case,  is  inherent  in  all  Unitarian 
consultations,  showed  itself  of  necessity  in  these  meet- 
ings. It  would  be  hard  to  say  how  many  enterprises  of 
public  spirit  received  direct  material  aid  from  them. 

As  to  the  cordial  social  life  which  grew  up  in  the 
church,  the  account  given  by  Dr.  Holmes,  in  "  The  Pro- 
fessor at  the  Breakfast-Table,"  may  well  be  copied. 

"  The  Church  of  the  Galileans,"  as  he  calls  it,  "  is 
open  to  all  comers.  The  stranger  who  approaches  it 
looks  down  a  quiet  street,  and  sees  the  plainest  of  cha|> 
els,^  —  a  kind  of  wooden  tent,  that  owes  whatever  grace 
it  has  to  its  pointed  windows  and  the  high  sharp  roof, 
traces,  both,  of  that  upward  movement  of  ecclesiastical 
architecture  which  soared  aloft  in  cathedral-spires, 
shooting  into  the  sky  as  the  spike  of  a  flowering  aloe 

^  Mr.  Clarke  writes  to  a  friend,  December  3,  isnO  :  "  We  collected 
in  our  small  society,  hist  Sunday,  the  sum  of  .f^tiOO  for  a  Thanksj^-ivinp 
present  to  Kansas.  Last  January  we  sent  ^."j3o.''  No  doubt  these 
contributions  were  for  food  and  clothing. 

2  The  society  then  worsliiped  in  Indiana  Place  Chapel. 


204  DIABY  AND  COBBESPONDENCE. 

from  the  cluster  of  broad,  sliarp-wedged  leaves  below. 
This  suggestion  of  mediaeval  symbolism,  aided  by  a 
minute  turret  in  which  a  hand-bell  might  have  hung 
and  found  just  room  enough  to  turn  over,  was  all  of  out- 
ward show  the  small  edifice  could  boast.  Within  there 
was  very  little  that  pretended  to  be  attractive.  A  small 
organ  at  one  side,  and  a  plain  pulpit,  showed  that  the 
building  was  a  church,  but  it  was  a  church  reduced  to 
its  simplest  expression. 

"  Here,  too.  Iris  found  an  atmosphere  of  peace  and 
love.  The  same  gentle,  thoughtful  faces,  the  same 
cheerful,  reverent  spirit,  the  same  quiet,  the  same  life 
of  active  benevolence.  But  in  all  else  how  different 
from  the  Church  of  Saint  Polycarp  !  No  clerical  cos- 
tume, no  ceremonial  forms,  no  carefully  trained  choir ! 
A  liturgy  they  have,  to  be  sure,  which  does  not  scruple 
to  borrow  from  the  time-honored  manuals  of  devotion, 
but  also  does  not  hesitate  to  change  its  expressions  to 
its  own  liking. 

"Perhaps  the  good  people  seem  a  little  easy  with 
each  other ;  —  they  are  apt  to  nod  familiarly,  and  have 
even  been  known  to  whisper  before  the  minister  came 
in.  But  it  is  a  relief  to  get  rid  of  that  old  Sunday  — 
no  —  Sabbath  face,  which  suggests  that  the  first  day  of 
the  week  is  commemorative  of  some  most  mournful 
event.  The  truth  is,  these  brethren  and  sisters  meet 
very  much  as  a  family  does  for  its  devotions,  not  put- 
ting off  their  humanity  in  the  least,  considering  it,  on 
the  whole,  quite  a  delightful  matter  to  come  together  for 
prayer  and  song  and  good  counsel  from  kind  and  wise 
lips.  And  if  they  are  freer  in  their  demeanor  than  some 
very  precise  congregations,  they  have  not  the  air  of  a 
worldly  set  of  people.  Clearly,  they  have  7iot  come  to 
advertise  their  tailors  and  milliners,  nor  for  the  sake  of 
exchanging  criticisms  on  the  literary  character  of  the 
sermon  they  may  hear.  There  is  no  restlessness  and 
no  restraint  among  these  quiet,  cheerful  worshipers.'^ 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  DISCIPLES.  205 

Mr.  Clarke  and  his  society  did  not  regard  "  member- 
ship of  the  church  "  and  ''  partaking  of  the  elements  in 
the  communion  service  "  as  interchangeable  terms.  His 
own  language  is,  "  Our  church  is  not  a  body  of  *  profes- 
sors,' but  of  students.  We  do  not  unite  together  as  com- 
municants to  partake  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  for  we  see 
no  natural  connection  between  the  two  acts.  We  keep 
them  distinct.  We  should  no  more  say,  *  Members  of 
churches  in  regular  standing  are  invited  to  partake 
of  the  Lord's  Supper,'  than  we  should  say,  '■  ]\Iem))ers 
of  churches  in  regular  standing  are  invited  to  sing  the 
fort^^-fourth  hymn.' " 

The  evident  danger  of  such  parish  life  as  has  been 
described,  if  your  man  has  anything  small  about  him,  is 
that  he  will  become  the  flesh-and-blood  idol  of  a  little 
coterie  calling  itself  a  church.  There  is  danger  that 
this  "church,"  instead  of  worshiping  God,  will  fall 
back  on  the  worship  of  itself  and  its  minister.  I  do 
not  know  whether  ISIr.  Clarke  ever  considered  this  dan- 
ger, but  it  is  clear  enough  that  he  was  armed  against 
it.  He  insisted  first,  as  indeed  the  Unitarian  principle 
requires,  that  his  church  should  not  occupy  itself  so 
much  with  the  salvation  of  its  own  members  as  with 
the  salvation  of  the  world.  He  was  quite  as  much  a 
missionary  in  Boston  as  he  had  been  at  Louisville,  and 
his  church  was  a  missionary  church  from  the  beginning. 
It  sent  its  own  protest  to  Congress  against  the  Mexican 
War.  It  published  its  own  tracts  against  the  annex- 
ation of  Texas.  When  John  Brown  was  arrested  at 
Harper's  Ferry,  John  Albion  Andrew,  afterwards  ''  War 
Governor"  of  Massachusetts,  came  to  a  church  meet- 
ing, and  proposed  a  contribution  to  pay  the  ex])enses  of 
his  defense.  And  accordingly  several  hnndred  (U)lhirs 
were  collected  at  once  in  that  church,  and  used  for  this 
purpose. 

Mr.  Clarke  himself  had  an  eye  ui)on  every  interest, 
and  could  not  be  shut  up  in  the  details  of  parochial  life. 


206  DIARY  AND  CORBESPONDENCE. 

His  sermons  and  all  lie  printed  gained  a  constantly 
widening  circle  of  readers,  and  his  correspondence  with 
people  who  owed  to  him  their  emancipation  from  the 
chains  of  dogmatic  or  of  sacramental  religion  soon 
made  large  demands  upon  his  already  fully  occupied 
time.  From  the  period  of  his  settlement  in  Boston, 
the  old  personal  letters,  covering  long  folio  pages  of 
paper,  and  written  to  his  early  friends,  grew  shorter 
and  shorter,  while  in  their  place  he  was  writing  instruc- 
tion, encouragement,  or  words  of  inspiration  to  people 
whom  he  had  never  seen.  In  another  chapter  we  will 
try  to  show  how  close  was  his  connection  with  the  anti- 
slavery  movement,  of  which  he  afterward  wrote  the 
narrative  for  the  "  Memorial  History  of  Boston."  He 
had  no  scruple  about  connecting  anti-slavery  with  poli- 
tics, and  worked  in  every  capacity  with  the  men  whose 
views  eventually  took  form  in  the  action  of  the  Free- 
Soil  party. 

But  it  was  with  his  pen,  and  as  an  editor,  that  he 
touched  the  world  at  the  greatest  number  of  points. 
From  the  year  1842  he  had  been  a  frequent  contributor 
to  the  "  Christian  Examiner,"  and  there  is  hardly  a  vol- 
ume without  an  article  by  him  from  that  time  until  it 
was  absorbed  in  "  Old  and  New,"  to  which  journal  also 
he  contributed  regularly. 

Not  long  after  his  return  to  Boston  the  question  of  a 
permanent  home  had  to  be  considered.  "  I  must  be  on 
my  anchorage  before  I  can  work  to  advantage,"  he  said. 
He  had  a  dream,  common  to  many  others  of  a  like 
social  temperament,  that  by  combining  with  a  group 
of  friends  who  should  live  near  each  other  in  the  coun- 
try, each  family  having  a  home  of  its  own,  but  with 
rooms  in  common  for  conversation,  music,  lectures, 
library,  etc.,  the  advantages  of  city  and  country  life 
might  be  obtained.  It  happened  that  in  the  spring  of 
1855  Brook  Farm  was  offered  for  sale.  This  place, 
nine    miles  from  Boston,  had  become   somewhat   cele- 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  DISCIPLES.  207 

brated  as  the  spot  where,  from  1841  to  1847,  a  L-ompany 
of  intelligent,  educated  men  and  women,  with  George 
Eipley  as  leader,  had  endeavored  to  carry  on  a  com- 
munity on  socialistic  principles.  Financially  the  plan 
was  unsuccessful,  and  in  1847  the  organization  was  dis- 
banded. 

This  was  the  place  which  Mr.  Clarke  bought,  tliink- 
ing  it  adapted  to  his  plan  of  a  neighborhood.  15 ut  it 
was  too  far  from  the  station  on  the  railroad,  and  too 
distant  from  the  city,  to  suit  the  business  friends  who 
formed  part  of  the  group  with  whom  he  had  hoped  to 
be  associated.  Indeed,  it  may  as  well  be  admitted  here 
that  his  marked  characteristic  of  hoi)ei"ulness  was  rather 
apt  to  prevent  him  from  foreseeing  ditticidties  in  regard 
to  the  business  details  of  life.  He  held  the  property, 
however,  for  a  number  of  years. 

The  plan  of  living  on  Brook  Farm  having  been  aban- 
doned, early  in  September,  1855,  he  bought  a  lot  on 
Woodside  Avenue,  Jamaica  Plain,  belonging  to  his 
friend  and  parishioner,  George  Wm.  Bond,  whose  own 
home  was  only  two  or  three  minutes  distant.  A  house 
was  in  process  of  building  on  the  place,  and  this  was  so 
far  completed  that  Mr.  Clarke  moved  into  it  before  the 
end  of  November.  In  this  home  he  passed  the  re- 
mainder of  this  life. 

In  the  spring  of  185G,  he  busied  himself  in  i)lanting 
trees,  making  flower-beds,  and  setting  out  the  smaller 
fruits.  In  1857,  he  writes  that  his  soulange  magnolia  is 
in  blossom,  and  that  his  dielytra  has  a  hundred  flowers 
on  it.  The  number  of  trees  he  contrived  to  i)ut  into  a 
house-lot  of  one  and  a  half  acres  was  surprising,  and  soon 
the  place  became  like  a  young  forest.  The  nest  of  the 
oriole  swung  from  the  branch  of  a  large  elm,  the  scarlet 
tanager  flitted  in  and  out  of  the  white  pine,  tlie  robins 
built  on  the  pillars  of  the  southern  piazza,  and  the 
squirrels  in  their  frolics  easily  leaped  from  tree  to  tree 
all  over  the  place.     As  the  trees  grew,  the  flowers  and 


208  DIABY  AND  COEEESPONDENCE. 

fruits  requiring  sunshine  gradually  disappeared.  In 
the  course  of  time  it  became  necessary  to  sacrifice  a 
number  of  the  trees  for  the  good  of  the  rest  and  for  the 
welfare  of  the  house.  It  was  long  before  Mr.  Clarke 
could  accept  this  measure,  but  finally  he  gave  his  con- 
sent, and  went  away  for  a  few  days  that  he  might  not 
hear  the  woodman's  axe  striking  at  the  lives  which  he 
had  fostered  with  so  much  pleasure.  As  the  years 
went  on,  the  sacrifice  had  to  be  repeated,  and  though 
Mr.  Clarke's  consent  came  late  and  reluctantly,  he  was 
always  magnanimous  enough  to  say  afterwards  that 
what  had  been  done  w^as  an  improvement.  In  the 
autumn  of  1887,  a  number  of  large  trees  w^ere  taken 
down.  Hepeatedly  during  that  winter  he  spoke  with 
pleasure  of  the  larger  extent  of  sky  which  had  been 
revealed,  and  of  the  better  opportunity  to  see  the  beauty 
of  the  sunsets.  The  last  time  he  walked  across  his 
room  he  Islj  for  an  hour  in  a  reclining  chair,  looking  out 
on  the  trees  which  he  had  seen  grow  up,  and  which  he 
had  loved  so  weU.  ^ 

After  the  reestablishment  of  the  Church  of  the  Dis- 
ciples there  was  no  farther  break  or  pause  in  its  life. 
Eemembering  the  amount  of  work  which  Mr.  Clarke 
put  into  the  years  that  followed,  and  the  youthfulness 
which  he  kept  to  the  last,  it  is  amusing  to  hear  him,  at 
the  age  of  forty-nine,  asking  whether  it  were  his  duty 
to  feel  old. 

TO    T.    W.    HIGGIXSON. 

Jamaica  Plain,  April  4,  1859. 

.  .  .  Believe  me,  it  was  no  feeling  of  coolness  which 
was  expressed  in  my  last  note,  but  merely  haste.  I 
wrote  a  hurried  line,  merely  to  learn  if  the  other  letter 
had  been  received. 

I  believe  there  is  one  good  thing  in  my  disposition, 
or  in  my  character,  which  is  that  I  do  not  judge  people 
by  their  actions  ;  but,  as  I  once  said  in  some  lines,  I 
"  judge  actions  by  their  people.'^     I  am  never  in  a  hurry 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  DISCIPLES.  209 

to  impute  any  fault  to  people  whom  I  have  known.  I 
may  not  understand  their  conduct,  but  I  assume  that 
there  is  something  which,  if  I  knew  it,  would  make  me 
understand  it  in  accordance  with  what  I  know  of  them. 

This  is  my  birthday,  and  I  am  forty-nine.  Is  it  a 
duty  to  feel  old  when  one  is  forty-nine  ?  I  value  age, 
for  it  brings  with  it  many  good  things  ;  but  I  cannot 
feel  old.  How  young  are  Thought,  Devotion,  Love  ! 
I  am' as  full  of  hope  as  I  was  thirty  years  ago,  when  I 
graduated  at  Cambridge,  looking  forward  to  life  expect- 
ant, full  of  plans  still.  I  am  always  expecting  to  preach 
better,  always  hoping  to  write  some  book,  or  to  learn 
some  new  subject  out  and  out. 

Age  brings  us  many  good  things,  —  among  the  rest, 
troops  of  friends.  A  person  ought  to  make  four  or  five 
new  friendships  every  year,  become  acquainted  with 
ten  or  twenty  good  new  people,  and  so  by  the  time  one 
is  fifty  he  can  hardly  help  having  a  multitude  about 
him  whom  he  likes.  He  has  also  seen  the  world  mov- 
ing on ;  he  has  seen  some  who  were  wild  becoming 
tame,  —  some  crabbed,  sour  fruit  mellowing  and  sweet- 
ening. 

However,  I  did  not  sit  down  to  write  you  a  treatise 
"  De  Senectute,"  but  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  your 
note,  and  to  say  that  to-day,  of  all  days  in  the  year,  I 
did  not  like  to  be  thought  '-  cool "  by  a  friend. 

The  next  year  brought  his  fiftieth  birthday,  and  his 
parishioners  held  a  reception  in  the  vestry  of  the  Indi- 
ana Place  Chapel,  to  wdiich  were  invited  not  only  past 
and  present  members  of  the  church,  but  also  others 
who  had  shown  an  interest  in  its  life.  Among  the  rec- 
ords of  this  occasion  is  an  address  by  John  A.  Andrew, 
who  had  become  a  member  of  the  church  a  few  months 
after  its  organization.  From  this  address  we  take  a 
few  sentences :  — 

"  I  have  been  asked  to  attempt  the  expression  of  that 


210  DIABY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

which  is,  in  truth,  inexpressible,  —  the  affectionate  re- 
spect of  this  congregation  of  Disciples  of  Christianity 
towards  him  who,  as  our  pastor  and  as  the  guest  of 
this  festivity,  is  the  central  figure  of  our  group.  ...  I 
confess,  for  myself,  that  I  do  not  know  how  I  could 
overestimate  the  influence  of  this  Home  of  the  Soul  on 
the  happiness  and  welfare  of  my  life.  Amid  all  dis- 
tractions, and  griefs,  and  bewilderments,  I  have  seen 
the  vision  of  this  temple,  and  heard  its  calm  voice  and 
hopeful  wisdom,  encouraging,  winning,  teaching,  and 
strengthening  the  love  of  the  best  goodness  and  the 
highest  truth.  .  .  . 

"  Twenty  years  of  earnest,  active,  most  devoted,  and 
various  labor  here,  as  a  preacher,  pastor,  writer,  and 
citizen,  have  identified  James  Freeman  Clarke  not  only 
with  this  single  organization,  but  also  with  the  ideas, 
progress,  history,  and  character  of  liberal  Christianity  ; 
and  when  I  heard  him,  just  now,  regret  the  past,  pass- 
ing severe  judgment  upon  himself,  as  if  he  "  had  not 
attained,"  underestimating  what  is  a  part  of  history,  — 
in  view  of  the  loftiness  of  his  ideal,  —  I  wished  that  I 
could  but  make  him  feel  how  priceless  is  the  good  my 
own  heart  confesses  that  it  owes  to  him,  and  how  many 
there  are  who  would  join  with  me  in  the  confession. 
Indeed,  this  human  life  is  all  too  short  to  allow  the  in- 
dulgence of  vain  regrets.  .  .  . 

"  Nor  would  I  forget  the  ample  satisfactions  which 
accompany  the  mind,  as  it  travels  over  the  broader 
field,  cultivated  by  one  of  a  catholic  spirit  and  no  pent- 
up  sympathies.  We  all  know  how  closely  allied  in 
labor,  as  in  spirit,  our  pastor  has  been  Avith  the  grand 
movements  which  have  signalized  the  history  of  the 
■ist  quarter  of  a  century.  How  thankful  it  makes  the 
heart  to  find  its  human  lot  cast  in  such  an  age,  such  an 
age  of  freedom  of  thought  and  action,  such  an  age  of 
hopefulness.  I  will  not  stay  to  lament  over  its  follies, 
its  failures,  or  its  reverses.     I  see  in  them  all  only  the 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  DISCIPLES.  211 

limitations  of  men ;  while  through  them  all  I  also  see 
<  the  steady  gain  of  man.^ 

"I  desire  to  render  due  thanks  and  due  honor  to  him 
who  has  guided  and  helped  our  thought  and  (»ur  aetiv- 
ity,  that,  in  all  the  vicissitudes  of  twenty  years,  against 
all  temptations,  and  under  all  allurements  of  temporiz- 
ing policy,  he  has  kept  this  pulpit  free,  this  church 
free,  its  creed  as  comprehensive  as  the  formulary  of  the 
first  Apostles,  its  spirit  of  brotherhood  as  exj)ansive  as 
the  charity  of  the  Christian  faith.  Nor  had  this  been 
possible,  save  to  a  man  who  saw  too  wide  a  field,  too 
great  a  harvest,  a  world  too  l)road,  and  a  humanity  too 
precious,  either  for  delays,  for  jealousies,  or  for  strifes  ; 
too  much  to  be  done,  too  many  ways  for  doing  good,  too 
little  difference  in  the  values  of  methods,  to  permit  the 
waste  of  strength  and  time  in  questioning  the  diversity 
of  the  manifestation  of  the  same  si)irit." 

The  Church  of  the  Disciples  outgrew  the  Indiana 
Place  Chapel,  and  early  in  1SG8  they  took  measures  to 
provide  themselves  with  a  building  better  adajjted  to 
their  needs.  Land  was  bought  on  Brookline  Street, 
corner  of  Warren  Avenue,  and  the  corner-stone  of  a  new 
edifice  was  laid  on  the  8th  of  July  in  the  same  year. 
The  building,  being  simple  in  design,  was  soon  com- 
pleted, and  it  was  dedicated,  February  28,  18G0,  on  the 
twenty-eighth  anniversary  of  the  first  religious  meeting 
held  after  the  formation  of  the  church. 

TO    HIS    SISTKK. 

Jamaica  Plain,  March  14,  1S<'.9. 
.  .  .  Yes,  we  are  in  our  new  church.  It  is  all  we 
want.  The  auditorium  is  large,  cheerful,  perfectly 
easy  to  speak  in,  a  pleasant  room  to  look  at.  The 
rooms  below  are  large,  comfortable,  convenient,  and  am- 
ple for  all  our  uses.  We  have  had  no  (piarrels,  we  liavc 
no  debt,  we  have  all  the  seats  free,  every  one  is  pleased 
and  hajiiiy.   ...    It  seems  miraculous  to  us;    I   cannot 


212  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

quite  understand  it.  ...  I  never  did  so  much  work  in 
the  same  time.  But  I  am  doing  too  much,  and  I  shall 
have  to  resign  my  professorship  at  Harvard,  I  think, 
as  well  as  my  place  on  the  Massachusetts  Board  of 
Education. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

ANTI-SLAVERY. 

At  our  earnest  request,  Dr.  Clarke's  classmate  and  friend,  Rev. 
Samuel  May,  of  Leicester,  has  prepared  this  valuable  narrative  of  his 
work  in  the  anti-slavery  movement,  which  culminated  in  the  emanci- 
pation of  the  slaves  of  America.  From  the  nature  of  the  case,  Mr. 
May  has  been  compelled  to  condense  severely  the  material  in  hand ; 
for  there  was  no  work  of  Mr.  Clarke's  life  in  which  he  was  more  in- 
terested than  this.  E.  E.  H. 

It  was  to  a  slaveholding  State  that  James  Freeman 
Clarke's  steps  were  directed,  when,  his  term  of  study  at 
the  Cambridge  Divinity  School  being  closed,  he  sought 
a  field  of  work,  with  a  high  purpose  of  self-consecra- 
tion. The  Unitarian  church  at  Louisville  needed  a 
minister,  called  him,  and  he  went  there  early  in  August, 
1833.  He  was  earnest  to  make  no  delay  in  preaching 
the  higher  form  and  better  views  of  Christianity  which 
he  had  learned  from  his  spiritual  father.  Dr.  James  Free- 
man ;  and  to  which,  by  the  guiding  of  Dr.  Channing,  the 
Wares,  and  other  witnesses  to  the  truth,  and  by  his  own 
maturer  studies,  he  had  come  to  devote  himself  with  all 
the  strength  of  a  nature  as  deep  and  brave  as  it  was 
calm  and  self-possessed.  Probably  the  matter  of  slavery 
had  nothing  to  do  with  his  decision  to  go  to  Kentucky ; 
and  it  is  not  likely  that  he  had  given  much  attention  to 
it  until  he  went  there.  During  the  whole  time  of  his 
study  at  the  Cambridge  Divinity  School,  a  society  of 
the  students  had  existed  for  the  purpose  of  considering 
questions  of  practical  benevolent  action.  The  prisons 
and  jails  were  thus  considered  ;  the  temperance  cause  ; 
the  cause  of  seamen ;  peace  and  war,  and  so  forth.     In 


214  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

this  way  there  came  in  review  before  the  students  all 
the  various  topics  and  movements  which  were  then  en- 
gaging the  attention  of  philanthropists  and  the  churches. 
These  the  students  discussed  in  the  presence  and  with 
the  aid  of  the  professors,  or  listened  to  invited  speak- 
ers who,  from  official  position  or  special  study,  could 
best  present  them.  But  it  is  not  remembered  that  the 
subject  of  slavery  in  the  United  States  came  before 
this  "  Philanthropic  Society  "  in  any  way  whatever,  as  a 
wrong  to  be  righted,  as  a  sin  to  be  repented  of  and  put 
away,  or  as  a  great  national  peril,  and  therefore  a  sub- 
ject for  a  Christian  minister's  study  and  action.  Per- 
haps no  greater  proof  of  the  deadness  of  the  public  con- 
science concerning  slavery  could  be  adduced  than  this, 
that  in  the  theological  school  of  the  freest  and  most  ad- 
vanced denomination  in  New  England,  where  thought- 
ful and  humane  men  like  the  Wares,  Pollen,  and  Palfrey 
had  office  and  influence,  men  who  subsequently,  in  dif- 
ferent degrees  and  ways,  became  strong  and  outspoken 
opponents  of  slavery,  three  years  of  study  and  prepara- 
tion for  active  ministerial  duty  could  be  passed,  from 
1830  to  1833,  with  no  special  recognition  of  that  great 
wrong. 

Mr.  Clarke  himself  says,  "  I  was  a  citizen  of  the  State 
of  Kentucky  from  1833  to  1840.  Slavery  existed  there, 
it  is  true,  in  a  comparatively  mild  form.  But  its  evils 
were  such  that  I  learned  to  look  on  it  with  unmixed 
aversion.  I  learned  my  anti-slavery  lessons  from  slav- 
ery itself,  and  from  the  slaveholders  around  me."  ^ 

And  what  was  American  slavery  ?  may  be  asked  by 
readers  who  have  come  upon  the  stage  since  slavery 
ceased  to  exist.  The  answer  must  be  sought  elsewhere  ; 
and  there  can  be  no  difficulty  in  finding  it.  Mr.  Clarke 
himself  has  named  a  book  to  which  he  was  indebted  for 
full  and  particular  knowledge  of  the  practical  character 

^  Anti-Slavery  Days,  by  James  Freeman  Clarke,  p.  22.  New  York, 
1884. 


AN  TI-SLA  VER  Y.  215 

and  working  of  slavery  in  the  United  States.  It  was 
entitled  "  American  Slavery  as  it  is  ;  Testimony  of  a 
Thousand  Witnesses,"  a  compilation  made  by  Theodore 
D.  Weld,  and  issued  by  the  American  Anti-Slavery  So- 
ciety. Similar  in  character  to  it,  but  of  twenty  years 
later  date,  is  the  "  Key  to  '  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,' "  com- 
piled by  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  the  author  of  that 
well-known  book. 

From  the  earliest  introduction  of  kidnapped  Africans 
to  America,  where  they  were  sold  as  slaves  to  the  high- 
est bidder,  condemnation  of  their  enslavement,  protest 
against  it,  and  prophecy  of  evil  consequences  from  it, 
had  not  been  wanting.  John  Wesley,  founder  of  the 
Methodist  Church,  —  who  had  been  in  Georgia  in  early 
life,  and  who  had  kept  up  his  knowledge  of  affairs  in 
Amerftia,  — just  before  his  death,  in  1791,  besought  Mr. 
Wilberforce  to  persevere  in  his  labors  for  the  abolition  of 
the  slave-trade,  "  till  even  American  slavery,  the  vilest 
that  ever  saw  the  sun,  shall  vanish  away."  Thomas 
Jefferson,  slaveholder  as  he  was,  declared  slavery  to  be 
full  of  evil  and  peril  to  the  country.  "  I  tremble  for  my 
country,"  he  said,  "  when  I  reflect  that  God  is  just,  and 
that  his  justice  cannot  sleep  forever."  And  he  said  that, 
in  a  contest  between  the  enslaved  and  their  oppressors, 
not  improbable,  in  his  judgment,  "  the  Almighty  has  no 
attribute  which  can  take  side  with  us  in  such  a  con- 
test." ^  A  confession  of  judgment  perhaps  unparal- 
leled, and  sufficiently  decisive  of  his  belief  that  slavery 
was  evil,  evil  only,  and  that  continually. 

Nevertheless,  heedless  of  the  example  of  Washington, 
who  had  given  freedom  to  his  slaves  by  will,  heedless 
of  the  warnings  of  Jefferson  and  of  others  whom  they 
professed  to  honor,  the  Southern  States  chose  slavery, 
and  sought  to  make  it  perpetual.  What  if  it  defied  God 
and  debased  man,  trami)led  on  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  and  made  their  country  a  by-word  and 

^  Notes  on  the  State  of  Virginia,  Sth  edition,  1M)1,  p.  ulO. 


216  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

reproach  ?  It  was  gainful,  and  that  answered  every 
objection.  So  they  demanded  what  Daniel  Webster 
afterwards  called  '*  solemn  guarantees  '^  for  slavery  in 
the  new  constitution  of  the  republic,  and  obtained  them  ; 
demanded  and  obtained  that  the  African  slave  trade 
should  go  on  unmolested  for  twenty  years.  The  evil 
spirit  encroached  more  as  it  gained  more.  It  found 
that  it  could  silence  Northern  men  by  threats  to  dis- 
solve the  Union ;  that  it  could  even  command  their 
service,  through  fear  of  losing  profitable  trade.  It  was 
as  early  as  1835  that  Governor  McDuffie,  of  South  Caro- 
lina, declared.that  "•  domestic  slavery,  instead  of  being 
a  political  evil,  was  the  corner-stone  of  our  republican 
edifice."  The  sentiment,  in  a  thousand  forms,  was 
echoed  from  all  the  Southern  States,  and  more  than  a 
generation  passed  before  the  dull  North  understood  its 
meaning.  "  It  is  all  a  hallucination,"  said  a  leading 
journal  of  Virginia,  "to  suppose  we  are  ever  going  to  get 
rid  of  African  slavery,  or  that  it  will  ever  be  desirable 
to  do  so.  .  .  .  The  negro  is  here,  and  here  forever,  is  our 
property  forever,  is  never  to  be  emancipated,  is  to  be 
kept  hard  at  work  and  in  rigid  subjection  all  his 
days."  ^  We  recall  these  passages  now,  that  present 
readers  may  see  with  w^iat  perverted  ideas  and  seared 
consciences  the  anti-slavery  men  of  Mr.  Clarke's  day,  in 
every  part  of  the  country,  had  to  contend. 

What  must  have  been  the  effect  upon  the  generation 
coming  upon  the  stage  when  such  ideas  prevailed,  and 
when  the  acceptance  of  them  in  American  thought  and 
life  was  a  part  of  education  ;  when  opposition  to  slav- 
ery, especially  in  the  laws,  was  denounced  as  unpa- 
triotic and  treasonable,  and  made  a  crime  subjecting  the 
offender  to  a  felon's  penalties  ?  What,  we  ask,  would 
be  the  moral  standard  of  the  young  when  required  by 
law  and  custom  to  bring  their  natural  conceptions  of 
right  and  justice  to  the  level  of  positive  inhumanity  ? 
1  Richmond  Examiner,  October,  1854. 


ANTI-SLAVERY.  217 

Kot  long  after  Mr.  Clarke  arrived  at  Louisville  he 
saw  one  Sunday,  in  church,  a  rather  striking-looking 
man,  listening  attentively,  and  holding  in  liis  hand, 
which  hung  over  the  pew,  a  riding -whij).  This  was 
Judge  Speed,  whose  farm  was  several  miles  from  tlie 
city,  and  who  had  ridden  to  church  on  horseback.  ^Ir. 
Clarke  soon  formed  the  acquaintance  of  IVIr.  and  i^Irs. 
Speed  and  of  their  sons  and  daughters  ;  and  when  he 
visited  them  he  found  a  circle  intelligent  and  refined 
and  of  the  greatest  hospitality.  Judge  Speed  held 
slaves.  On  one  occasion  Mr.  Clarke  took  a  young 
friend  from  Boston  to  call  upon  some  of  his  friends 
near  Louisville.  The  first  visit  was  to  the  plantation 
of  the  Marshall  family,  holding  slaves.  oNIrs.  Marshall 
was  a  sister  of  James  G.  Birney,  afterwards  well  known 
as  the  candidate  of  the  political  anti-slavery  party  for 
President.  "  My  Boston  friend,"  says  Mr.  Clarke, 
"believed  that  abolition  was  fanaticism;  and  he  said 
to  Mrs.  j\Iarsliall  that  he  thought  the  Northern  ])eople 
who  attacked  slavery  were  very  much  mistaken.  ]\lrs. 
Marshall  replied,  '  It  will  not  do,  sir,  to  defend  slavery 
in  this  family.  The  Marshalls  and  the  Birneys  have 
always  been  abolitionists.'  The  Boston  gentleman  was 
greatly  surprised  to  hear  such  an  avowal.  "We  next 
drove  to  the  house  of  my  dear  old  friend,  Judge  Speed, 
who  took  us  about  his  plantation,  and  showed  us  the 
negro  cabins,  having  in  them  various  comforts  and  orna- 
ments. My  companion  said,  '  Judge,  I  do  not  see  but 
the  slaves  are  as  happy  as  our  laboring  classes  at  the 
Korth.'  'Well,'  answered  the  Judge,  'I  do  the  best  I 
can  to  make  my  slaves  comfortable,  but  I  tell  you,  sir, 
you  cannot  make  a  slave  hajtpy,  do  what  you  will.  God 
Almighty  never  made  a  nuin  to  be  a  slave,  and  he  can- 
not be  happy  while  he  is  a  slave.'  '  But,'  continued  the 
Boston  visitor,  '  what  can  be  done  about  it,  sir  ?  They 
could  not  take  care  of  themselves,  if  set  free.'  'I 
think  I  could  show  you  three  men  on  my  j>lant;itinn/ 


218  DIAEY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

replied  Judge  Speed,  '  who  might  go  to  the  Kentucky 
legislature.  I  am  inclined  to  believe  they  would  be  as 
good  legislators  as  the  average  men  there  now.'  "  ^  It  is 
evident  that  Mr.  Clarke's  first  acquaintance  with  slave- 
holders was  an  exceptionally  favorable  one. 

In  the  volume  of  Mr.  Clarke's,  entitled  "  Anti-Slavery 
Days,"  from  which  the  above  passages  are  taken,  the 
open  manner  in  which  slavery  was  at  that  date  dis- 
cussed in  Kentucky,  in  public  as  well  as  in  private,  is 
quite  fully  described,  and  instances  of  such  discussions 
are  given.  In  them  Mr.  Clarke  was  not  silent.  He 
took  part  in  a  public  debate  in  Louisville,  lasting  three 
nights,  which  ended  with  a  majority  against  slavery. 
And  in  the  Louisville  ''Journal,"  then  edited  by  George 
D.  Prentice,  he  wrote  in  opposition  to  slavery.  But  his 
chief  field  and  opportunity  for  making  his  sentiments 
known,  not  in  Louisville  only,  but  throughout  an  ex- 
tensive Western  region,  were  furnished  by  his  editorial 
connection  with  the  "  Western  Messenger,"  of  which  we 
must  now  give  a  somewhat  particular  account. 

In  April,  1836,  Mr.  Clarke  assumed  the  editorship  of 
the  "Western  Messenger,"  a  monthly  magazine,  of 
which  eight  numbers  had  already  been  published  in 
Cincinnati.  In  the  first  number  published  in  Louisville, 
he  printed  copious  extracts  from  Dr.  W.  E.  Channing's 
work  entitled  "  Slavery,"  which  had  just  appeared  in 
Boston.  These  extracts  occupied  about  twelve  pages  of 
the  "  Messenger,"  and  gave  Mr.  Clarke  the  opportunity 
to  manifest  the  attitude  which,  as  an  editor  of  a  Chris- 
tian journal,  he  felt  it  his  duty  to  take  on  the  subject 

^  At  a  later  day,  two  sons  of  Judge  Speed  carried  out  the  lessons  of 
their  home  in  a  way  to  make  them  effective  in  the  country's  history. 
Joshua  Speed  was  the  intimate  friend  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  in 
daily  intercourse  with  him,  for  five  years  of  their  early  life  in  Spring-- 
field,  Illinois.  James  Speed,  another  son,  was  called  by  Mr,  Lincoln 
into  his  Cabinet,  in  18G4,  as  Attorney  General  of  the  United  States,— 
a  man  of  the  highest  personal  character  and  of  eminent  legal  ability. 


ANTI-SLAVERY.  219 

of  slavery.  Mr.  Clarke  says,  "  We  heard  of  this  Ijook 
from  all  quarters  before  we  saw  it;  and  that  an  ••dition 
of  three  thousand  copies  had  been  sold  ininiediatidy." 
He  speaks  of  various  criticisms  for  and  against  the 
work,  and  says,  "  Now,  having  read  it  we  j)ronounce  it, 
in  our  judgment,  the  best  production  of  its  author.  In 
thought,  unanswerable ;  in  expression,  clear,  concise, 
and  strong ;  in  spirit,  not  merely  religious,  but  Chris- 
tian. Springing  from  the  deepest  fountain  of  duty,  it 
flows  out  in  the  purest  current  of  love.  How  many 
there  may  be  in  ^Massachusetts  that  would  object  to 
such  a  publication  we  know  not ;  but  this  we  know,  that 
in  Kentucky  their  number  is  very  small.  The  people 
of  Kentucky  have  never  been  afraid  of  discussing  this 
subject,  or  of  having  it  discussed  before  them.  "We 
have  heard  lectures,  we  have  participated  in  debates,  in 
which  everything  was  said  that  could  have  been  spoken 
in  a  free  State." 

After  occupying  twelve  pages  with  extracts  from  Dr. 
Channing,  Mr.  Clarke  adds,  "  The  substance  of  the  book 
seems  to  be,  Slavery  is  a  wrong  and  evil ;  but  it  does 
not  follow  that  immediate  emancipation  is  right,  or  that 
the  slaveholder  is  a  sinner.  Xo  good  man  should  sleep 
over  this  subject;  he  should  think  and  pray  upon  it. 
But  it  rests  with  the  slaveholding  States,  and  no  others, 
to  point  out  the  time  and  way  in  which  slavery  is  to 
cease.  The  people  of  the  North  have  a  right  to  form 
and  express  opinions  on  this  subject ;  but  they  must  do 
it  so  as  not  to  endanger  the  peace  and  tranquillity  of 
the  South,  and  must  never  address  the  slave,  but  (mly 
his  master.  To  all  which  we  say,  Amen."  In  May,  Mr. 
Clarke,  in  a  brief  notice,  commends  the  Colonization  So- 
ciety; and  in  the  August  numl)er,  in  answer  to  a  com- 
munication, he  says,  *'  I  consider  the  system  of  slavery 
a  monstrous  evil,  moral,  economical,  and  ])liysical,  to 
remove  which  from  a  single  State  I  would  willingly 
devote  my  life ;  but  the   principles  of   Abolitionists  I 


220  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

consider  false,  and  the  consequences  of  their  efforts 
evil  to  the  master  and  the  slave.  The  false  position 
which  all  Abolitionists  take  is  this,  that  if  a  system  or 
institution  is  wrong,  all  who  support  it  are  committing 
sin.  .  .  .  Though  the  system  of  slavery  is  a  Avrong  one, 
I  deny  that  to  hold  slaves  is  always  to  commit  sin.  The 
system  must  be  judged  by  its  consequences,  the  man  by 
his  motives.  If  his  motive  in  holding  the  slave  is  to 
perpetuate  the  system  for  his  own  selfish  ends,  though 
he  sees  its  general  evils,  then  his  act  is  a  sinful  act.  If 
his  motive  is  to  preserve  the  peace  of  the  community 
and  the  welfare  of  the  slave  till  the  time  comes  when 
emancipation  is  safe  and  wise,  then  it  is  not  a  sinful 
act."  Then  follow  arguments  against  the  advisability 
of  immediate  emancipation.  In  closing  the  article,  Mr. 
Clarke  protests  that  he  is  not  to  be  suspected  of  having 
acquired  a  love  of  slavery  by  residence  in  a  slave  State. 
He  says,  "  Acquaintance  with  slavery  has  only  increased 
my  disgust  and  horror  at  the  misery  flowing  from  it." 

In  proof  that  liberty  of  speech  prevailed  in  Kentucky 
Mr.  Clarke  cites  the  case  of  Mr.  Birney,  who  had 
preached  and  lectured  all  through  the  State  against 
slavery,  showing  it  to  be  politically  bad,  economically 
injurious,  morally  wrong,  and  socially  dangerous.  But 
when  Mr.  Birney  proposed  to  set  up  an  Abolition  paper 
in  the  town  of  Danville,  the  opposition  was  so  strong 
that  he  left  Kentucky,  to  publish  his  paper  in  Cincin- 
nati. Mr.  Clarke  thinks  it  was  a  mistake  in  him  to 
throw  away  the  vantage  ground  which  he  possessed  as 
a  native  Kentuckian,  and  to  go  elsewhere  "  to  write  and 
print  an  Abolition  newspaper.  He  descended  [in  so  do- 
ing] to  a  level  which  any  Garrison  could  occupy  as 
well  as  he."  But  freedom  of  thought  and  speech  was 
necessary  to  Mr.  Birney,  and  we  cannot  call  that  free 
speech,  in  this  case,  which  did  not  include  the  right 
to  print  and  publish  his  thoughts.  Mr.  Birney  was 
under  the  necessity  of  establishing  himself  elsewhere 


ANTI-SLAVERY.  221 

in  order  to  discharge  his  conscience  in  the  matter  of 
slavery  ;  and  so  his  course  was  not  to  be  considered 
a  descent,  but  the  reverse,  as  it  proved  his  high  pur- 
pose, while  it  showed  that  in  some  parts  of  Kentucky, 
at  least,  a  free  press  was  impossible. 

In  after  years  Mr.  Clarke  learned  to  think  otherwise 
of  Mr.  Garrison,  and  to  cooperate  with  him  to  a  consid- 
erable extent ;  and,  when  slavery  fell,  to  join  by  word 
and  deed  in  the  public  recognition  of  those  great  ser- 
vices of  Mr.  Garrison's  life  which  made  the  nation  for- 
ever his  debtor.  In  "  Anti-Slavery  Days"  (p.  22),  ^Mr. 
Clarke  says,  speaking  of  those  early  years  in  Kentucky, 
"  At  that  time  I  knew  nothing  of  Mr.  Garrison  or  his 
movement,  and  supposed,  as  others  did,  that  he  was 
merely  a  violent  fanatic.  After  I  returned  to  Boston 
in  1841,  I  had  the  advantage  of  knowing  him  and  his 
fellow-laborers,  and  seeing  something  of  their  grand 
and  noble  work." 

In  the  "  Messenger  "  of  December,  1836,  Mr.  Clarke 
printed  in  full  the  stirring  lines  of  Whittier,  on  the 
passage  of  Pinckney's  "  Resolutions  "  and  of  Calhoun's 
"  Bill  of  Abominations,"  beginning 

"  Now  by  our  fathers'  ashes !  —  where  's  the  spirit 
Of  the  tnie-hearted  and  the  unsliafkled  jjone  ? 
Sons  of  old  freemen,  do  we  but  inherit 

Their  names  alone  !  "  * 

In  the  "  Messenger  "  of  Februarys  1837,  Mr.  Clarke 
says,  "  We  have  have  read  Dr.  Channing's  letter  to  ^Ir. 
Birney  with  great  pleasure.  It  is  a  noble  vindication 
of  the  outraged  rights  of  free  discussion."  He  again 
has  a  friendly  word  for  the  Colonization  Society,  but  is 
"  not  surprised  that  the  negroes  are  so  suspicious  of  this 
society  as  to  believe  that  those  who  embark  for  Lilxn-ia 
are  never  carried  there,  but  are  sold  as  slaves.  Tlie 
African  has  received  too  much  wrong  iroiu  the  whiter 

1  In  the  later  editions  of  Mr.  Whitticr's  poems,  these-  lines  bcijiu 
thus  :    "  Men  of  the  Northland,"  etc. 


222  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

man  to  make  us  wonder  at  such  suspicions."  In  the 
December  issue,  Mr.  Clarke  reviews  a  book  called  "  The 
Bible  against  Slavery,"  in  which  he  takes  occasion  to 
speak  of  "  Abolitionists  of  the  ultra  sort,  whose  object  is 
not  to  convince,  but  to  bear  down  by  a  storm  of  popular 
feeling."  Perhaps,  as  an  individual  judgment,  this  is 
as  harsh  as  any  of  those  by  Abolitionists  which  Mr. 
Clarke  censures.  Abolitionists  in  those  days  were  the 
victims  of  such  storms,  as  witness  Mr.  Clarke's  re- 
peated rebukes  of  mob  violence,  and  they  had  little 
power,  even  had  they  the  disposition,  to  excite  such 
storms  against  others.  In  a  later  number  Mr.  Clarke 
quotes  approvingly  Dr.  Channing's  words :  ^'  No  com- 
munities can  withstand  just,  enlightened,  earnest  opin- 
ion ;  and  this  power  must  be  brought  to  bear  on  slavery 
more  zealously  than  ever." 

The  destruction  by  a  mob  of  the  printing  press  of 
Eev.  Elijah  P.  Love  joy,  of  Alton,  111.,  and  the  death  of 
Mr.  Lovejoy  at  the  hands  of  the  mob,  brought  from  Mr. 
Clarke  the  following  outburst :  "  We  must  add  our  voice 
to  the  sound  of  rebuke  which  has  been  uttered  by  the 
press  almost  unanimously  from  North  and  South,  from 
East  and  West.  One  or  two  persons  have  attempted  to 
divert  the  public  attention  from  this  terrible  outrage  to 
the  imprudence  of  Mr.  Lovejoy.  ...  A  man  whose  mind 
at  such  a  time  can  dwell  for  a  moment  on  Lovejoy's 
imprudence  or  mistakes,  on  the  folly  of  Abolitionism, 
or  the  mischief  which  Abolitionists  are  doing,  shows 
either  that  he  has  a  very  imperfect  idea  of  the  transac- 
tion, or  a  very  imperfect  notion  of  right  and  wrong. 
Abolitionism  is  not  now  the  question.  The  question  is 
of  American  freedom,  of  liberty  of  thought  and  speech, 
of  the  freedom  of  the  press,  of  which  Hume's  famous 
maxim  declares  that  ^the  liberty  of  the  people  must 
stand  or  fall  with  it.'  " 

In  the  "  Messenger  "  for  February,  1838,  Mr.  Clarke 
re-afiirms  his  belief  that  immediate  emancipation  would 


^.V  TI-SLA  VEB  Y.  223 

be  wrong  ;  that  some  kind  of  education  and  preparation 
should  precede  emancipation. 

Some  of  his  Alton  subscribers  had  withdrawn  their 
subscriptions,  and  the  editor  thus  addresses  them :  ''Are 
you  wise  in  discontinuing  on  account  of  our  notice  of 
Mr.  Lovejoy's  murder  ?  We  think  not.  What  you 
ought  to  pray  for  just  now  is,  that  every  editor,  far  and 
wide,  shall  speak  out  his  abhorrence  of  this  deed  in 
tones  which  shall  rebuke  the  spirit  of  mob-ism  in  your 
borders.  You  have  silenced  your  own  press,  and  you  are 
actually  under  the  rule  of  a  mob.  Opinion  governs  every- 
thing, and  the  opinion  of  your  city  is  in  favor  of  mob 
law.  .  .  .  We  know  that  you  have  good  men  and  true 
amongst  you,  but  be  assured  it  is  a  mistaken  patriotism 
which  would  now  refuse  to  listen  to  tones  of  rebuke." 

The  "Messenger"  for  May,  1839,  contains  extracts 
from  the  letter  of  Dr.  Channing  to  Jonathan  Phillips, 
of  which  the  chief  topic  was  a  recent  speech  of  Mr.  Clay, 
of  Kentucky.  Mr.  Clarke  says  :  "  We  do  our  readers 
the  best  service  in  our  power  by  presenting  them  with 
these  extracts.  Many  of  our  Southern  and  Western 
friends  may  have  no  other  opportunity  of  becoming  ac- 
quainted with  the  views  of  one  who  speaks  upon  tlie 
great  subject  of  interest  before  the  American  people 
with  equal  sympathy  and  candor.  May  the  day  soon 
eome  for  that  frank  and  friendly  interchange  of  thought 
which  all,  as  Christians  and  brethren,  must  desire." 

After  October,  1839,  the  "  Messenger  "  was  edited  by 
Rev.  William  H.  Channing ;  but  in  the  August  number 
of  1840,  Mr.  Clarke  writes  of  the  case  of  Rev.  George 
r.  Simmons,  compelled  to  leave  IVIobile  on  account  of 
his  sermons  against  slavery.  He  states  the  facts,  which 
are  honorable  to  ]\[r.  Simmons,  but  gives  reasons  "  which 
induce  us  to  believe  that  a  Christian  minister,  in  a 
slaveholding  State,  ought  not,  under  present  circum- 
stances, to  preach  on  the  subject  of  slavellol(li^I,^"  He 
says  the  "  subject  of  slavery  cannot  be  handled  in  any 


224  DIABY  AND  COBRESPONDENCE. 

way  in  the  South  without  producing  instant  and  violent 
excitement ; "  for  ^'  the  public  mind  is  in  a  diseased  and 
irritable  condition." 

This  abstract  of  the  "  Western  Messenger's  "  course 
in  regard  to  slavery,  during  the  three  and  a  half  years 
of  Mr.  Clarke's  editorship,  is  given  because  its  evidence, 
we  think,  is  conclusive  of  Mr.  Clarke's  early  principle 
against  slavery,  his  sincere  and  strong  desire  that  it 
should  cease,  and  his  determination  to  speak  his  thought 
about  it  carefully,  yet  plainly.  He  was  in  a  community 
where  prominent  men  and  families,  some  of  them  his 
personal  friends,  held  and  openly  expressed  anti-slavery 
sentiments,  and  in  a  State  extensively  believed  to  be 
ripe  for  emancipation,  which  belief  he  shared.  There 
was  ground  for  hope  of  it  when  men  like  James  G. 
Birney,  Cassius  M.  Clay,  and  Eobert  J.  Breckenridge, 
besides  such  as  have  been  already  named,  representing 
the  best  intelligence  and  character  of  the  State,  could 
publicly  advocate  and  practice  emancipation,  as  then 
and  later  they  did.  That  this  belief  was  an  error  in 
time  appeared,  as  Mr.  Clarke  sorrowfully  acknowledged. 
"  In  those  days  every  Kentuckian  said  that  Kentucky 
would  be  the  first  State  to  emancipate.  Alas !  it  was 
one  of  the  very  last."  ^ 

Here,  as  he  leaves  Kentucky,  we  may  record  his  own 
judgment  of  slavery,  which,  though  expressed  at  a  later 
day,  was  evidently  the  firm  conviction  of  his  mind  after 
his  seven  years'  residence  in  a  slave  State.  ^'Abolition- 
ists have  stated  the  evils  of  slavery  very  strongly,  but 
they  never  have  been  overstated.  It  was  a  condition  of 
perpetual  warfare.  Not  only  were  untold  cruelties  in- 
flicted on  the  slaves  almost  as  a  matter  of  necessity; 
but  among  the  whites  deeds  of  violence,  duels,  street- 
shootings,  death  by  lynch-law,  mob  violence  in  all  its 
forms  were  common.  The  young  men  grew  up  in  the 
midst  of  license  and  self-indulgence  of  all  kinds."  He 
1  Anti-Slavery  Days,  p.  26. 


AN  TI-SLA  VER  Y.  225 

testifies  to  exceptions  in  the  persons  of  upright,  honor- 
able, pure  men  and  women,  who  felt  responsibility  for 
the  proper  care  and  comfort  of  their  slaves,  "  But  the 
system  itself,"  he  adds,  "  was  so  evil  that  it  made  their 
best  efforts  almost  useless."  ^ 

It  was  a  noteworthy  fact  of  his  life  in  Louisville  that 
he  openly  attacked  the  custom  of  dueling,  then  almost 
unquestioned,  and  that  he  preached  against  it ;  even 
men  of  note  and  character  deeming  him  singularly 
warped  or  blinded  in  doing  so.  A  friend  of  his,  a 
judge,  said,  "He  might  just  as  well  preach  against 
courage." 

Leaving  Louisville  in  June,  1840,  he  came  in  the 
same  year  to  Boston,  and  gave  himself  to  his  long- 
cherished  purpose  of  forming  a  Christian  society  in 
accordance  with  his  ideas  of  equal  discipleship  and  co- 
operation. The  hold  which  the  question  of  slavery  had 
upon  him  soon  appears.  In  the  mass  of  his  manuscripts 
in  these  early  years  are  sermons  upon  such  themes  as 
"  the  national  sin  of  slaveholding ; "  "  the  sin  of  holding 
in  bondage  three  millions  of  our  brethren  ; "  "  slavery 
in  the  United  States,"  and  that  all  have  a  duty  to  do 
for  its  abolition,  against  Texan  annexation,  against  the 
Mexican  war,  and  so  forth.  In  a  sermon  in  1847,  when 
his  topic  was,  "  Slavery  must  be  destroyed  or  it  will 
destroy  us,"  he  said  :  "  If  I  were  in  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States,  I  would  end  every  speech  as  Cato  ended 
his  speeches  in  the  Koman  Senate ;  whatever  his  sub- 
ject, he  always  ended  by  saying,  'And  besides,  Senators, 
it  is  my  opinion  that  Carthage  should  be  destroyed.' 
So,  whether  I  spoke  of  tariff  or  of  banks,  of  manufac- 
tures or  of  commerce,  of  relations  with  France  or  with 
China,  I  should  think  it  logical  to  add,  'And  besides. 
Senators,  it  is  my  opinion  that  slavery  should  be  de- 
stroyed.' For  what  sort  of  i)rosperity  can  we  hope  to 
have  in  any  direction,  while  this  deadly  foe  is  attacking 
our  heart  and  life  ?  " 

^  Anti-Slavery  Days,  p.  21. 


226  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

In  1844,  a  letter  had  been  received  from  British  Uni- 
tarian ministers,  addressed  to  their  American  brethren, 
on  the  subject  of  slavery,  and  a  brief  reply  in  acknow- 
ledgment had  been  made.  Such  had  been  the  growth 
of  anti-slavery  opinion  that  it  was  widely  felt  among 
the  Unitarian  ministers  that  they  should  take  some 
united  action  on  t-he  subject ;  and  at  a  public  meeting, 
held  at  the  Bulfinch  Street  vestry  in  Boston,  May  29, 
1845,  it  was  resolved  to  issue  a  protest  against  slavery 
as  unchristian  and  inhuman ;  that  all  the  ministers 
should  have  opportunity  to  sign  it,  and  that  it  should 
then  be  published  and  distributed.  A  committee  of 
eleven  ministers  —  of  which  Mr.  Clarke  was  one,  Kev. 
Caleb  Stetson,  of  Medford,  being  the  chairman  —  was 
chosen  to  draw  up  this  protest,  and  Mr.  Clarke  was  re- 
quested by  the  committee  to  write  it.  This  he  did  with 
care,  and  at  some  length.  It  was  accepted  essentially 
as  it  came  from  his  hands.  "All  who  have  seen  it,"  said 
the  chairman,  "  are  exceedingly  well  pleased  with  it." 

The  protest  bore  its  "solemn  testimony"  against 
slavery,  because  "  We  owe  it  to  three  millions  of  slaves, 
our  fellow-men  and  brethren,  to  do  what  we  can  to  undo 
their  burdens  by  calm  and  earnest  appeals  to  the  reason 
and  consciences  of  the  slaveholders,"  and  because  "  We 
owe  it  to  the  slaveholders,  our  fellow-men  and  brethren, 
to  speak  a  word  of  warning  concerning  the  moral  evil 
and  inhumanity  "  of  slavery.  The  fact  that  the  gospel 
of  Christ  cannot  be  fully  preached  at  the  South ;  the 
fact  of  Northern  complicity  in  upholding  slavery  ;  and 
the  fact  that  all  the  principles  upon  which  the  Unita- 
rian faith  is  based  are  violated  by  slavery,  are  especially 
given  as  reasons  for  the  protest. 

"  And  we  do  hereby  pledge  ourselves,"  it  is  said  in 
conclusion,  "  before  God  and  our  brethren,  never  to  be 
weary  of  laboring  in  the  cause  of  human  rights  and 
ireedom,  till  slavery  be  abolished  and  every  slave  made 
free."  The  protest  was  signed  by  one  hundred  and 
seventy-three  Unitarian  ministers. 


AN  TI-SLA  VER  Y.  227 

Soon  after  coming  to  Boston  he  became  a  frequent 
writer  for  "  The  Christian  Workl,"  established  and  ed- 
ited by  jMr.  George  G.  Channing.  At  a  later  period, 
1847-48,  he  was  himself  its  editor.  From  an  imperfect 
file  before  us  it  appears  that  slavery,  and  subjects  con- 
nected with  it,  were  frequent  topics  with  him ;  as  also 
with  another  correspondent,  John  A.  Andrew,  after- 
wards known  as  the  "  great  War  Governor  "  of  Massa- 
chusetts, but  at  that  time  a  young  lawyer  in  Boston,  a 
personal  friend  and  parishioner  of  Mr.  Clarke.  The 
duty  of  every  Northern  man  to  give  his  influence  for 
the  termination  of  slavery  is  set  forth  in  letters,  in 
leading  articles,  and  in  sermons.  The  especial  duty  of 
Unitarians  to  make  application  of  their  distinguishing 
principles  to  this  subject  is  urged.  The  paper  had 
much  influence  in  bringing  the  Unitarian  ministers  to 
unite  in  the  protest  against  slavery  already  spoken  of. 
Mr.  Clarke  and  Mr.  Andrew  also  wrote  often  in  its  col- 
umns against  the  war  with  Mexico,  so  obviously  a  slave- 
holders' war.  A  protest  against  that  war  went  to  Con- 
gress from  the  Church  of  the  Disciples,  in  Boston,  of 
which  Mr.  Clarke  was  the  minister.  It  was  signed  by 
one  hundred  and  thirty  members  of  that  church. 

For  several  years,  subsequently,  he  was  the  Boston 
correspondent  ("  Shawmut ")  of  the  New  York  "  Chris- 
tian Inquirer,"  edited  at  different  times  by  Rev.  Samuel 
Osgood  and  Rev.  Henry  W.  Bellows.  We  find  him 
writing  therein  on  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  and  the  con- 
sternation it  caused  among  both  escaped  slaves  and  free 
colored  people  in  the  Northern  States.  He  describes 
one  such  exodus,  of  which  he  was  himself  a  witness,  of 
colored  residents  of  the  State  of  Pennsylvania.  Meet- 
ings and  lectures  against  that  law  are  reported  by  him. 
The  indictment  of  Rev.  Theodore  Parker  for  words 
spoken  in  Faneuil  Hall  hostile  to  that  law ;  the  duty  of 
taking  one's  religious  principles  into  the  political  con- 
test against  slavery  ;  the  New  England  Emigrant  Aid 


228  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

Society's  work  in  saving  Kansas  from  slavery ;  the 
Dred  Scott  case,  with  the  humiliating  decision  of  the 
United  States  Supreme  Court,  and  the  dissent  of  Judges 
McLean  and  Curtis  therefrom,  —  these,  and  whatever 
other  phase  of  the  great  question  might  present  itself, 
were  treated  plainly  and  fearlessly.  In  the  protracted 
effort  to  remove  Judge  Edward  G.  Loring  from  the  of- 
fice of  Judge  of  Probate  for  Suffolk  County  in  Massa- 
chusetts, because  of  his  act,  as  a  United  States  Com- 
missioner, in  giving  up  Anthony  Burns  to  slavery,  —  an 
effort  delayed  by  Governor  Gardner's  refusal  to  comply 
with  the  request  of  the  Legislature,  but  afterwards  car- 
ried into  execution  by  Governor  Banks,  —  Mr.  Clarke 
was  greatly  interested,  contributing  to  its  success  by 
his  articles  in  the  "  Inquirer." 

In  October,  1856,  he  addressed  a  public  letter  to  his 
fellow-townsman,  J.  Thomas  Stevenson,  reviewing  the 
political  course  of  Daniel  Webster  as  a  senator  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, and  as  a  member  of  President  Fillmore's 
Cabinet.  Mr.  Stevenson  was  a  personal  and  political 
friend  of  Mr.  Webster  ;  and  it  was  generally  understood 
that  Mr.  Webster's  support  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law 
was  a  thorough  surprise  and  grief  to  him.  The  letter 
appeared  in  a  New  York  paper,  signed  "  A  Citizen  of 
Massachusetts ; "  but  its  authorship  was  not  a  secret. 
Mr.  Clarke  points  out,  with  faithful  plainness,  the 
causes  of  Mr.  Webster's  change  and  fall.  "  We  all 
know,"  he  said,  "  that  he  had  a  majestic  intellect  and  a 
large  soul ;  but  we  know  equally  well  that  the  one  was 
not  infallible,  nor  the  other  immaculate."  Step  by  step 
Mr.  Webster  had  subdued  the  tone  of  his  early  condem- 
nation of  human  slavery,  and  of  whatever  and  whoever 
supported  it,  till  at  length  he  is  found  consenting  to, 
and  voting  for,  that  slaveholders'  extreme  measure,  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law ;  a  measure  which  proved  a  fatal 
one  to  him  and  all  its  authors,  a  load  too  grievous  for 
the  long-divided  and  dishonored  North  to  endure. 


ANTI-SLAVERY.  229 

Mr.  Clarke  was  a  contributor  to  the  "  Christian  Ex- 
aminer "  for  many  years.  We  can  only  refer  here  to 
the  chief  instances  in  which  he  wrote  therein  of  slav- 
ery. There  was  published  in  Boston  in  1854,  "  A  South 
Side  View  of  Slavery  ;  or,  Three  Months  at  the  South 
in  1854.  By  Nehemiah  Adams,  D.  D."  Dr.  Adams 
was  pastor  of  a  Boston  church.  His  motive  in  visiting 
the  South,  and  in  publishing  the  book,  must  be  sought 
in  the  book  itself.  It  may  be  referred  to,  now,  as  evi- 
dence of  the  kind  of  work  which  an  educated  New  Eng- 
land minister  of  that  day  was  willing  to  do.  Mr. 
Clarke  examines  this  book  {"  Christian  Examiner,"  Jan- 
uary, 1855)  in  a  very  thorough  manner.  No  abstract  of 
his  review,  within  any  brief  compass,  could  do  it  jus- 
tice. For  keen  analysis,  sound  criticism,  effective  and 
witty  reply,  it  is  a  good  model.  "We  have  spoken 
strongly,"  he  says  in  conclusion,  "in  censure  of  this  re- 
markable production,  but  no  more  strongly  than  the 
case  demands.  .  .  .  When  a  Northerner  enjoying  the 
blessings  of  freedom,  when  a  minister  of  the  gospel 
which  was  sent  to  break  every  yoke  and  to  let  the  op- 
pressed go  free,  goes  South  to  find  excuses  for  slavery, 
and  comes  home  in  order  to  publish  them,  we  think  the 
case  demands  plain  speaking,  —  that  there  are  no  words 
too  strong  to  use  for  its  condemnation." 

In  like  manner,  in  the  pages  of  the  "  Examiner,"  he 
reviews  two  other  books,  of  similar  purport ;  one  by 
Eev.  Nathan  Lord,  D.  D.,  president  of  Dartmouth  Col- 
lege, the  other  by  John  H.  Hopkins,  D.  D.,  bishop  of 
the  Episcopal  Church  in  Vermont.  Dr.  Lord  issued, 
in  fact,  two  pamphlets  ;  the  first,  anonymously,  as  a 
"Northern  Presbyter."  The  American  Presbyterian 
Church,  of  which  he  was  a  member,  had  taken  a  de- 
cided stand  against  slavery  in  1794 ;  and,  in  1818,  had 
declared  it  to  be  the  duty  of  Christians  to  obtain  the 
complete  abolition  of  slavery  throughout  Christendom, 
and,  if  possible,  throughout  the  world.     Dr.  Lord,  how- 


230  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

ever,  in  1854,  overrides  this  position  of  his  church,  —  a 
position,  indeed,  which  that  church  itself  had  long  before 
abandoned.^  He  maintains  that  slavery  is  an  institu- 
tion of  God,  according  to  natural  religion,  and  that  it  is 
a  positive  institution  of  revealed  religion,  an  institution 
which  may  profitably  be  extended,  and  that  Christians, 
instead  of  opposing  slavery,  ought  to  oppose  the  men 
who  seek  to  abolish  it.  He  admits  abuses,  and  con- 
demns them  ;  but  claims  that  they  are  not  inherent  in 
it.  Mr.  Clarke  states  Dr.  Lord's  position  as  not  only 
excusing  slavery,  but  defending,  and  justifying,  and 
admiring  it.  "  He  declares  he  would  own  slaves,  if 
necessity  or  convenience  should  require  it."  This  posi- 
tion so  greatly  "  out-Heroded  Herod,''  even  at  a  time 
when  the  anti-slavery  movement  had  but  little  counte- 
nance, that  it  unquestionably  shocked  the  general  sense 
of  the  community.  It  afforded  Mr.  Clarke  an  excellent 
opportunity  for  his  critical  powers,  his  fund  of  informa- 
tion, and  his  clear,  controlling  sense  of  justice,  in  all 
which  qualities  he  compares  most  favorably  with  his 
Presbyterian  opponent.  Mr.  Clarke  says,  "  In  an  age 
of  light.  Dr.  Lord  has  chosen  darkness."  "  His  writ- 
ings will  not  strengthen  slavery  ;  but  they  will  promote 
infidelity.  When  Dr.  Lord  argues  that  slavery  is  a 
^  positive  institution  of  revealed  religion,'  no  man  will 
believe  any  more  in  slavery  ;  but  many  will  disbelieve 
in  revelation.  .  .  .  We  wish  no  harm  to  Dartmouth 
College,  but  rather  good,  in  desiring  that  it  may  be 
speedily  relieved  from  the  injury  of  having  at  its  head 
a  man  of  such  extreme  and  bitter  fanaticism."  ^ 

Of  Bishop  Hopkins's  book,  which  was  entitled  "  The 
American  Citizen,"  six  chapters  of  which  are  given  to 
the  citizen's  duties  in  connection  with  slavery,  Mr. 
Clarke  treats  in  the  ''Examiner"  of  September,  1857. 

1  The  American  Churches  the  Bulwarks  of  American  Slavery,  by 
James  G.  Birney. 

2  Christian  Examiner,  November,  1856. 


ANTI-SLAVERY.  231 

It  was  a  book  of  contradictions,  representing  slavery  as 
a  part  of  the  divine  plan,  sanctioned  by  the  church  ;  and 
yet  something  to  be  got  rid  of ;  and  this  to  be  effected 
by  sending  the  slaves  to  Africa.  It  was  difficult  to  deal 
patiently  with  such  a  book,  but  the  weary  work  was 
done.  "  We  are  ready,"  Mr.  Clarke  concludes,  "  for  any 
other  bishop,  pious  South  Side  traveler,  metaphysical 
president,  or  other  dignitary,  who  may  next  enter  the 
lists  in  defense  of  our  national  sin,  or  raise  a  cry  of  ex- 
ultation over  our  national  shame.  We  are  sorry  to  read 
such  books,  but  not  sorry  to  criticise  them." 

He  made  the  condition  of  the  colored  people  a  special 
study.  His  note-books  abound  in  memoranda  concern- 
ing them,  especially  such  as  had  ever  been  slaves.  Long 
lists  of  names  are  given,  showing  occupation,  standing 
and  reputation,  ownership  of  property,  habits  as  to 
temperance,  church  attendance,  number  of  children  in 
schools.  In  1850,  a  serious  illness  had  obliged  Mr. 
Clarke  to  give  up,  for  a  time,  his  connection  with  his 
church  in  Boston  ;  and,  in  the  autumn,  he  went  to  Mead- 
ville,  Pennsylvania,  for  rest  and  recovery.  When  par- 
tially restored,  he  became  minister  of  the  Meadville 
society,  continuing  about  two  years.  During  this  pe- 
riod he  visited  Cleveland  and  Cincinnati,  and  made  an 
extended  inquiry  into  the  character  and  circumstances 
of  the  colored  people,  recording  the  facts  obtained  at 
much  length.  He  consults  at  Cincinnati  the  city  records 
of  taxable  property;  finds  that  two  hundred  colored 
citizens  pay  taxes  on  real  estate  ;  that  one  of  them  has 
a  property  of  ^2G,000  ;  another,  of  $15,000 ;  another,  of 
$10,000  ;  three  others  have  $4,000  each,  and  so  on  ;  that 
they  have  six  churches  ("  W.  says  that  all  the  colored 
people  attend  church  "  )  ;  that  they  have  four  schools, 
with  four  hundred  and  fifty  children  in  them  ;  tliat  fifty 
of  their  older  children  are  sent  to  advanced  schools  and 
colleges,  at  Oberlin  and  elsewhere ;  that  they  labor  un- 
der many  difficulties  in  getting  employment,  even  when 


232  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE, 

having  unquestioned  qualifications  ;  that,  in  spite  of 
these,  they  maintain  a  respectable  position  and  repute. 
A  well-conducted  hotel  was  kept  by  one ;  and  one,  with 
larger  property  than  those  before  named,  has  "  the  best 
retail  grocery  in  the  city/'  He  gives  a  list  of  thirty- 
six  different  trades  or  pursuits  in  which  they  are  en- 
gaged. He  made  like  inquiries  concerning  the  colored 
people  of  St.  Louis,  Baltimore,  and  Philadelphia ;  and 
during  all  the  time  of  his  residence  in  Boston,  and  es- 
pecially after  returning  there  in  1853,  he  kept  himself 
informed  of  the  resident  colored  people,  and  personally 
acquainted  with  many  of  them.  In  an  article  in  the 
"  Christian  Examiner  "  of  September,  1857,  he  says  that 
he  had  "  taken  some  pains  to  examine  into  the  condi- 
tion of  the  free  negroes  in  Boston,  Philadelphia,  Cleve- 
land, Cincinnati,  and  other  places,"  and  gives  the  re- 
sults.^ 

When  in  Washington,  in  the  winter  of  1851,  Mr. 
Clarke  sought  the  society  of  members  of  Congress  and 
others,  prominent  as  opponents  of  slavery  and  of  its 
rule  in  national  affairs.  The  house  of  Mr.  Gamaliel 
Bailey,  editor  of  the  "National  Era,"  was  the  usual 
place  of  their  gathering.  "  I  met  there,"  he  says, 
"  Seward,  Giddings,  Chase,  Hale,  Julian,  Slade,  Horace 
Mann,"  and  others.  "  These  men  were  unpopular  in 
Congress  ;  were  in  a  small  minority ;  their  influence 
was  supposed  to  amount  to  little."  ^  To  these  meetings 
also  came  "  other  gentlemen  of  their  way  of  thinking 
from  different  parts  of  the  country."  It  is  not  difficult 
to  imagine  the  interest  or  the  importance  of  these  meet- 
ings, their  cheering  influence  on  those  attending  them, 
and  their  salutary  bearing  on  the  public  counsels.  "  As 
the  wheel  of  time  revolved,  these  men  came  to  the 
summit,"  he  says.  Even  then  the  questions  of  the  set- 
tlement of  Kansas  and  Nebraska  were  looming  up  in 

1  See,  also,  Anti-Slavery  Days,  p.  96. 
^  Anti-Slavery  Days,  p.  62. 


ANTI-SLAVERY.  233 

the  horizon  ;  questions  which,  of  immediate  importance 
in  themselves,  were  destined  to  have  a  far  more  ex- 
tended effect  as  touchstones  of  men  and  parties  ;  ques- 
tions in  which  Mr.  Clarke  himself  was  preparing  to  take 
a  deep  interest  and  active  part. 

On  Whitsunday,  June  4,  1854,  he  preached  an  em- 
phatic discourse  on  the  rendition  of  Anthony  Burns  to 
slavery,  a  deed  then  just  done  in  Boston  with  the  co- 
operation of  the  civil  and  military  powers  of  the  city 
and  State.  Its  publication  was  called  for,  and  an  edi- 
tion of  two  thousand  copies  was  f)i'inted,  followed 
speedily  by  two  thousand  more.  In  it  he  said,  "  I  blame 
to-day  the  churches  and  clergy  of  Boston ;  for  if  they 
had  been  faithful  to  their  Master,  this  thing  could 
not  have  happened.  And  especially  I  blame  the  Uni- 
tarian churches,  for  they  have  had  the  especial  and 
rare  fortune  of  having  their  greatest  and  best  teacher 
on  the  side  of  justice  and  humanity,  and  they  have 
fallen  away  from  his  teaching  and  his  example.  Dr. 
Channing's  writings  read  to-day  as  history,  not  pro- 
phecy. He  announced  beforehand,  in  his  clear  mind,  all 
that  has  since  come  upon  us.  And  yet  out  of  the  Uni- 
tarian churches  of  Boston  have  come  those  who  have 
done  the  most  in  this  community  to  lower  its  moral 
sense  on  this  subject.  The  man  who  voted  for  the 
[Fugitive  Slave]  law  at  Washington,  and  many  of  those 
who  defended  and  have  enforced  it  at  home,  were  mem- 
bers of  our  Unitarian  churches."  "  True,"  he  said,  "  we 
have  also  been  represented  at  Washington  by  a  John 
Quincy  Adams,  a  John  G.  Palfrey,  a  Horace  Mann,  and  a 
Charles  Sumner."  He  remembers  that  it  is  Whitsunday. 
"  Last  Friday,  Christ  was  crucified  again  in  the  form  of 
the  poor  negro  slave.  This  morning  I  feel  in  my  heart 
that  he  has  arisen  from  the  grave,  and  that  his  spirit  is 
poured  out  on  many  a  mind  and  heart,"  for  the  servants 
of  Christ,  he  said,  will  everywhere  be  "  speaking  with 
new  tongues,  as  the  spirit  gives  them  utterance." 


234  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

He  attended  on  the  1st  of  August,  1857,  at  Abington, 
Mass.,  the  celebration  of  the  anniversary  of  emancipa- 
tion in  the  British  AVest  Indies,  and  "addressed  the 
meeting,"  said  the  "National  Anti-Slavery  Standard," 
"in  a  speech  characterized  by  ability  of  reasoning  and 
happy  illustration,  which  we  give  nearly  in  full."  Only 
a  few  extracts  can  be  given  here.  After  alluding  to 
the  scarcity  of  holidays  in  this  country,  he  proceeded  : 
"  But  the  people  of  New  England  have  found  another 
holiday ;  and  they  have  found  it  on  this  day,  on  which 
we  meet  to  celebrate  —  what  ?  To  celebrate  what  never 
happened  in  the  world  before  the  1st  of  August,  1834, 
namely,  the  acknowledgment  of  the  fact,  by  a  nation, 
that  it  was  bound  by  the  great  laws  of  right  and  wrong 
just  as  much  as  individuals  are  bound  by  them.  That 
is  what  we  celebrate  to-day,  and  that  is  worth  celebrat- 
ing. .  .  .  We  can  learn  from  that  act  this  :  that  it  is 
a  safe  thing  to  emancipate  the  slaves  of  the  United 
States.  You  know  that  the  constant  outcry  has  been 
that  those  who  wish  to  have  the  slaves  emancipated  are 
wishing  to  have  the  throats  cut  of  the  masters,  their 
wives,  and  their  children;  and  you  know,  too,  that 
when  these  800,000  West  India  slaves  became  free  men 
there  was  not  a  single  throat  cut,  nor  the  least  act  of 
violence  committed,  throughout  the  whole  of  the  British 
possessions.  You  know  this  very  well,  because  we  have 
read,  over  and  over  again,  descriptions  of  the  beautiful 
solemnity  of  the  peaceful  and  happy  thanksgivings 
with  which  these  slaves,  turned  into  freemen,  welcomed 
the  great  boon  of  liberty."  He  spoke  of  the  plain  prac- 
tical lessons  which  that  grand  act  of  emancipation  had 
for  the  United  States,  and  said,  "I  make  two  parties 
in  this  country,  and  only  two.  I  do  not  call  them  slave- 
holders and  non-slaveholders,  because  I  know  that 
among  the  slaveholders  are  some  of  the  most  generous 
and  noble  souls  in  the  world.  I  have  lived  among  them  ; 
I  have  known  them ;   I  know  there  were  men  among 


ANTI-SLAVERY.  235 

them,  —  and  I  suppose  there  are  still,  —  who,  while 
technically  and  nominally  slaveholders,  were  yet,  in  the 
whole  influence  of  heart  and  life,  anything  but  slave- 
holders. .  .  .  The  two  parties  which  1  should  make  are, 
those  who  are  doing  sometliing  against  slavery,  and 
those  who  are  not  doing  anything  against  slavery.  .  .  . 
I  believe  the  great  influence  that  is  to  overthroAv  slav- 
ery is  Christ  and  his  church.  I  believe  that  Christ  is 
present  where  any  two  or  three  meet  together  to  do  any 
act  of  righteousness,  any  act  of  generosity,  any  act  of 
humanity.  I  And  my  church,  whether  it  is  called  a 
church  or  not,  wherever  I  find  men  with  whom  I  can 
w^ork  in  the  cause  of  God  on  earth,  which  is  the  cause 
of  man.  That  is  my  church  as  long  as  I  live.  .  .  . 
There  Christ  dwells,  my  master,  my  friend,  the  friend 
of  humanity  and  of  human  rights.  I  believe  he  is  here. 
...  So,  friends,  I  say  go  forward !  If  you  think  the 
dissolution  of  the  Union  is  the  thing  to  strive  for,  strive 
for  that.  If  you  think  that  in  any  other  way  you  can 
best  labor  for  the  cause  of  the  slave,  I  will  not  hinder 
you,  I  will  help  you  as  well  as  I  can,  and,  by  the  bless- 
ing of  God,  the  day  will  certainly  come  when  we  our- 
selves, or  our  children,  or  our  children's  children,  shall 
meet  in  this  beautiful  grove,  hearing  the  sweet  song  of 
these  pines  over  our  heads,  to  celebrate  the  day,  not  of 
AVest  India  emancipation,  but  of  the  emancipation  of 
the  slaves  in  the  United  States  of  America." 

The  "Boston  Courier,"  no  longer  edited  by  the  Hon. 
eToseph  T.  Buckingham,  censured  Mr.  Clarke  for  at- 
tending this  meeting  of  the  Massachusetts  Anti-Slavery 
Society,  and  giving  countenance  to  the  disunion  Aboli- 
tionists. He  sent  a  letter  to  that  paper  stating,  as  lie 
had  done  at  the  meeting  itself,  the  ])<)ints  in  wliidi  \w 
differed  from  the  Anti-Slavery  Society;  and  also  tlif 
points,  which  he  deemed  of  far  more  ]iractic;il  inijtor- 
tance,  of  essential  agreement;  and  showing  the  real 
danger  to  be  in  the  policy  of  concession  to  the  demands 
of  the  slave  power. 


236  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

Besides  sermons  in  1855,  urging  the  present  need  of 
anti-slavery  work  ;  and,  in  1856,  on  "  Clerical  Defenses 
of  Slavery  '^  by  "  prophets  who  prophesy  falsely  ;  "  on 
"  The  Demoralization  of  the  North  by  Slavery ; "  and 
on  the  duty  of  anti-slavery  voting,  we  note  a  published 
sermon  of  November  6,  1859,  on  the  "  Causes  and  Con- 
sequences of  the  Affair  at  Harper's  Ferry,"  in  which  he 
said:  "•  Yoli  may  call  John  Brown's  act  madness,  but  it 
is  the  madness  of  Curtius  leaping  into  the  gulf  which 
yawned  in  the  Forum  ;  the  madness  of  Arnold  of  Win- 
kelried  gathering  into  his  bosom  the  deadly  sheaf  of 
spears ;  the  madness  of  the  Three  Hundred  who  went 
to  die  at  Thermopylae.  It  is  a  kind  of  insanity  of  which 
a  few  specimens  are  scattered  along  the  course  of  the 
human  race,  and  wherever  they  are  found  they  make 
the  glory  of  human  nature,  and  give  us  more  faith  in 
God  and  man." 

Mr.  Clarke  had  formed  a  high  estimate  of  the  integ- 
rity, sincerity,  and  moral  heroism  of  John  Brown,  a 
feeling  which  he  kept  to  the  end  of  his  life ;  while  he 
could  not  fully  approve  his  violent  or  warlike  acts.  His 
position  can  be  fully  apprehended  only  by  reading  the 
whole  of  this  masterly  discourse.  Had  such  been  the 
tone  of  the  American  pulpit  generally,  during  the  long 
agitation  of  the  question  of  slavery,  the  nation  would 
have  been  saved  from  many  a  harm,  and  very  probably 
from  the  war  itself.  A  brief  abstract  of  the  sermon  is 
all  that  is  here  possible.  His  text  was,  "  Herod  feared 
John,  knowing  that  he  was  a  just  man."  He  says  that 
John  Brown's  "  whole  course  has  been  so  convincingly 
conscientious,  manly,  truthful,  and  heroic,  that  his  ene- 
mies have  been  compelled  to  honor  him.  .  .  .  North 
and  South  seem  united  in  one  opinion  and  one  senti- 
ment "  about  him,  namely,  that  "  his  attempt  was  un- 
wise and  unwarranted  ;  "  that  ''  the  man  himself  "  was 
to  be  regarded  "  a  hero."  ^ 

1  Governor  Andrew  had  publicly  said,  '  *  Men  may  say  what  they 
please  of  John  Brown's  methods,  — John  Brown  himself  was  right.''^ 


ANTI-SLAVERY.  237 

"An  attempt  has  been  made,"  he  said,  "to  ascribe 
this  eVent  to  the  teaching  of  the  Anti-Slavery  party  in 
this  country.  Well,  they  are  the  cause  of  it,  in  one 
sense,  just  as  Samuel  Adams  and  Josiah  Quincy,  James 
Otis  and  Patrick  Henr^^  were  the  cause  of  the  bloodshed 
at  Lexington  and  Bunker  Hill.  .  .  .  Whoever  op})08es 
tyranny  and  wrong  with  words  will  often  cause  a  con- 
flict of  deeds  to  follow.  .  .  .  But  where  rests  the  re- 
sponsibility ?  Not  on  those  who  oppose  evil,  but  on 
those  who  maintain  and  defend  it.  Therefore,  not  on 
anti-slavery  teaching,  but  on  pro-slavery  teaching,  Xorth 
and  South,  .  .  .  rests  the  responsibility  of  this  tragedy." 

The  real  "  causes  of  this  sad  affair  "  are,  (1)  "  slavery 
itself,  especially  the  newly  developed  purpose  of  three 
hundred  thousand  slaveholders  to  force  support  of  slav- 
ery upon  the  nation ; "  (2)  "  the  false  conservatism  of  the 
North,  .  .  .  laboring  steadily  to  let  down  the  sentiment 
of  freedom,  .  .  .  and  so  giving  moral  aid  and  comfort  to 
the  slave  power ;  "  (3)  "  the  low  condition  of  the  religion 
of  the  countr}''.  In  such  a  conflict  as  that  between  slav- 
ery and  freedom,  Christianity  organized  in  churches, 
embodied  in  Christian  men  and  women,  should  have 
come  forward,  to  speak  the  truth  in  love.  .  .  .  Unfor- 
tunately, little  of  this  has  been  done.  .  .  .  We  have 
been  taught  from  a  thousand  pulpits  that  man's  lower 
law  must  be  obeyed,  and  not  the  law  of  conscience.  On 
the  other  hand,  when  the  truth  has  been  uttered,  it  has 
not  been  always  uttered  in  love  to  the  slaveholder,  but 
often  in  bitterness.  ...  In  saying  this,  I  do  not  refer 

to  professed  Abolitionists  alone John  l^rown  is  an 

Old  Testament  Christian,  .  .  .  such  a  man  as  Calvinism 
produced  in  the  Scotch  Covenanters,  and  in  Cromwell's 
Ironside  regiment,  .  .  .  with  a  touch  of  chivalric  devo- 
tion and  inspired  enthusia.sm  such  as  nerved  th(^  arm  of 
the  IVIaid  of  Orleans.  .  .  .  One  consequence  of  the  event 
will  be  the  arousing  of  the  nation's  conscience  .... 
The  Herod  of  slavery  fears  John  Brown,  in  prison  or  in 
tomb,  knowing  him  to  be  a  just  man." 


238  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

Stirring  times  were  at  hand.  The  nation  had  become 
far  more  extensively  aroused  to  the  magnitude  of  the 
issues  involved  in  the  question  of  slavery  than  the  po- 
litical leaders  were  willing  to  believe.  The  nomination 
of  Abraham  Lincoln  had  been  made  in  the  determina- 
tion that  Southern  aggression  should  at  least  go  no 
farther ;  and  thoughtful  people  hoped  confidently,  and 
believed  generally,  that  that  would  be  but  the  begin- 
ning of  the  end.  On  the  eve  of  the  election,  Sunday, 
November  4,  I860,  Mr.  Clarke  gave  an  address  in  his 
church,  "  crowded  largely  with  voters,"  on  the  great 
issues  involved,  and  urged  support  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  A 
few  days  later  it  was  known  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  been 
elected  President  by  a  large  majority  over  the  party  of 
slavery,  so  long  in  the  ascendant.  Then  came  days  of 
intense  excitement  on  the  part  of  the  South,  as  it  saw 
the  sceptre  departing  from  its  hands  ;  days  of  almost 
equal  excitement  at  the  North,  through  apprehension 
of  what  the  South  would  do ;  and  of  readiness,  on  the 
part  of  some  prominent  Northern  leaders,  to  make  the 
greatest  concessions  to  avert  the  peril.  In  a  sermon, 
w^hose  date  is  not  given,  but  evidently  preached  at  this 
time,  when  meetings  "  to  save  the  Union  "  were  called 
and  held  on  all  sides,  Mr.  Clarke  said :  "  The  object  of 
these  union  meetings  seems  to  be,  not  to  denounce  the 
spirit  of  disunion  at  the  South,  but  the  spirit  of  free- 
dom at  the  North.  Those  who  conduct  and  address 
them  propose,  apparently,  to  pacify  the  Southern  slave- 
holders, by  persuading  or  compelling  Northern  citizens 
to  put  a  stop  to  all  discussion  of  the  subject  of  slavery. 
.  .  .  The  great  danger  to  the  stability  and  perpetuity 
of  the  Union  is  in  the  growth  of  slavery.  .  .  .  Slav- 
ery is  the  destructive  element  in  our  institutions  ;  and 
genuine  conservatism  ought  to  oppose  it  always.  .  .  . 
Slaver}^  is  necessarily  aggressive.  It  is  conscious  that 
it  can  only  live  by  extending  itself,  and  therefore  it 
always  aims  at  new  conquests.  .  .  .   These  qualities  of 


AN  TI-SLA  VER  Y.  239 

slavery  have  caused,  in  succession,  niiUilication  in  South 
Carolina ;  the  cruel  and  faithless  robbery  of  the  Indian 
lands  in  Georgia ;  the  expense  and  misery  of  the  Florida 
war ;  the  iniquitous  annexation  of  Texas  ;  and  the  still 
more  iniquitous  war  with  JMexico.  The  founders  of  our 
Constitution  were  all  agreed  that  slavery  wiis  soon  to 
come  to  an  end ;  but,  instead  of  that,  it  has  been  stead- 
ily extending  itself,  and  is  now  the  controlling  element 
in  the  policy  of  the  country." 

The  annual  meeting  of  the  IMassachusetts  Anti-Slav- 
ery Society,  in  January',  18G1,  occurring  at  the  moment 
when  the  political  managers  were  holding  these  U  nion 
meetings,  could  not  be  overlooked  by  them,  and  they 
determined  to  break  it  up.  Accordingly  the  galleries 
of  Tremont  Tenq^le,  in  Boston,  were  crowded  with  law- 
less and  ruffianly  men,  evidently  instructed  to  act  in 
concert  at  signals  from  their  leaders.  The  meeting  was 
opened  quietly,  President  Francis  Jackson  in  the  chair. 
After  the  usual  services  Wendell  Phillips  reported  a 
series  of  resolutions,  largely  made  up  of  quotations,  in 
favor  of  freedom  and  emancipation,  from  Daniel  Web- 
ster, Henry  Clay,  Rev.  Dr.  Channing,  and  representa- 
tives of  Georgia  in  the  first  American  Congress.  These 
being  declared  before  the  meeting,  for  its  consideration, 
Rev.  James  Freeman  Clarke,  pastor  of  the  Church  of 
the  Disciples,  was  the  first  speaker.  He  said,  "They 
being  dead,  yet  speak  !  I  am  glad  to  hear  a  speech  from 
Dr.  Channing  here  this  morning.  I  am  glad  to  hear 
Daniel  Webster  speak,  as  he  spoke  when  lie  was  in  his 
best  estate.  I  am  glad  to  hear  Henry  Clay  speak  here 
to-day,  as  Henry  Clay  spoke  when  in  his  youtli,  when 
he  loved  freedom,  and  when  his  heart  beat  high  in  be- 
half of  human  liberty.  They  are  gone ;  we  remain. 
We  are  to  finish  their  work.  We  are  here  to  be  faithful 
to  their  ideas.  What  is  life  worth,  what  is  it  good  for, 
if  it  is  not  to  serve  the  truth,  and  to  uphold  some  prin- 
ciples of  truth,  justice,  and  honor  ? 


240  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

"  We  come  here  to-day,  friends,  because  the  times  are 
dark,  and  because,  in  these  dark  times,  men  are  trying 
to  make  them  darker  by  shutting  out  the  eternal  lights 
which  come  from  God's  heavens  [applause], — because 
they  would  substitute  for  these  everlasting  lights  of 
justice  to  all,  and  freedom  for  all,  some  base  earth-born 
swamp-created  meteors  of  mere  expediency,  —  which  is 
not  expediency,  even  for  the  present  hour.  [Applause.] 
I  have  come  here  to-day,  not  hoping  to  be  able  to  add  a 
word  to  what  all  of  you,  old  veterans  in  the  cause  of 
freedom,  know  already ;  but  I  come  to  give  my  simple 
witness  in  defense  of  those  everlasting  principles.  I 
do  not  want  to  hear  anything  new  here  to-day.  I  want 
to  hear  the  same  great  truths,  which  you  have  been 
uttering  now  for  twenty-live  years,  uttered  over  again 
to-day  in  this  hall.  When  I  was  asked,  some  time  since 
[six  or  seven  weeks  before]  to  attend  the  meeting  in 
commemoration  of  the  work  of  John  Brown  [applause 
and  hisses],  though  I  reverenced  John  Brown,  though  I 
believed  him  to  be  a  man  in  whom  truth  and  justice 
were  incarnated  [a  voice,  '^  Amen,"  applause,  and  hisses] 
so  that  we  beheld  them  in  visible  form  before  our  eyes, 
yet  I  did  not  come,  and  I  did  not  wish  to  come.  I  did 
not  think  it  best  to  hold  that  meeting.  [Applause.]  I 
did  not  think  it  desirable  at  that  time.  I  said,  '  Ko ; 
I  would  rather  not  attend,'  and  I  did  not  come.  But 
if  I  had  known  what  was  to  happen  here  that  day,  I 
certainly  would  not  have  stayed  away.  [Loud  applause 
and  some  hissing.]  If  I  had  supposed,  for  a  moment, 
that  an  attempt  was  to  be  made,  here  in  Boston,  to  put 
down  an  honest  expression  of  opinion,  upon  that  or 
upon  any  other  subject,  in  a  meeting  of  that  kind,  cer- 
tainly I  never  would  have  hesitated,  for  a  moment,  to 
come  here,  and  stand  with  those  men  on  this  platform. 
[Cheers  and  hisses.]  Whatever  else  we  can  spare  here 
in  New  England,  we  cannot  do  without  free  speech. 
[Loud  applause.]     That  lies  at  the  foundation  of  all 


ANTI-SLAVERY.  241 

our  rights,  of  everything  that  is  wortli  having  in  the 
land." 

The  noise  and  tumult  now  became  so  great  as  to 
make  it  difficult  to  speak  or  to  hear.  Nevertheless  Mr. 
Clarke,  in  cool  and  steady  manner,  ''  said  all  he  had  in- 
tended to  say."  It  was  an  eloquent  defense  both  of 
free  speech  and  of  the  faithful  service  which  the  Anti- 
Slavery  Society  had  rendered  thereto  during  many  past 
years.  "  I  see  no  danger,"  he  said,  "  except  from  yield- 
ing up  our  principles." 

Then  came  the  war.  He  was  not  taken  by  surprise. 
He  had  seen  its  approach.  He  had  remonstrated  against 
that  lack  of  Northern  firmness  which  invited  the  South 
to  each  new  act  of  aggression.  His  habitual  self-pos- 
session must  have  had  a  special  joy  and  gratitude,  that 
his  friend,  John  A.  Andrew,  at  that  crisis-hour,  was 
Governor  of  Massachusetts.  We  cannot  be  mistaken 
in  thinking  that  they  often  conferred  together,  and 
that  Mr.  Clarke's  counsel  and  cooperation  were  valued 
by  Governor  Andrew. 

In  the  "Examiner  "  of  July,  18G1,  he  writes  on  ''  The 
War,"  then  but  newly  begun,  and  filling  all  hearts  with 
anxiety.  Speaking  of  its  causes,  he  says  :  "  The  sys- 
tem of  slavery  must  now  be  recognized  by  all  as  the 
origin  and  fountain  of  our  evils."  Briefiy  he  recounts 
the  successive  demands,  encroachments,  and  usurpations 
of  slavery  in  our  national  affairs,  so  invariably  sul>- 
mitted  to  by  the  Northern  States.  His  hopefulness, 
faith,  and  foreonst  of  victory,  at  this  early  and  certainly 
not  reassuring  period,  should  be  rememl)ered.  "It  is 
our  duty  at  the  present  time  to  be  full  of  hojje.  ...  It 
is  the  duty  of  all  patriots  to  resist  the  new  attemi)ts  to 
compromise,  to  concede,  and  to  surrender  principle  for 
the  sake  of  peace.  .  .  .  We  see  in  this  war  that  we,  as 
a  people,  are  not  what  we  should  be ;  we  see  our  want 
of  true  life,  our  need  of  more  generosity,  nobleness, 
magnanimity.  .  .  .  God  is  guiding  events  still ;  they  are 


242  DIABY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

moving  forward  to  a  better  future  than  has  been  seen 
yet.''  In  that  future  Mr.  Clarke  discerns  "emancipa- 
tion and  the  end  of  slavery.  Thus  Christ  always  comes 
in  the  clouds  of  heaven ;  but  he  comes,  and  the  world 
advances  to  its  great  and  perfect  destiny." 

On  Sunday,  April  21,  1861,  —  the  Sunday  following 
the  departure  of  the  Sixth  Massachusetts  Regiment  for 
Washington,  in  obedience  to  the  first  call  of  President 
Lincoln  for  troops,  —  Mr.  Clarke  preached  on  "  The 
State  of  the  Nation."  "  True,"  he  said,  "  the  traitors 
who  have  had  control  of  the  administration  for  the  last 
four  years  .  .  .  have  left  us  without  money,  troops, 
vessels,  or  arms  ;  have  laid  their  plots  safely ;  and  are 
wholly  ready  for  a  conflict  for  which  we  are  wholly  un- 
prepared. Very  likely  they  will  succeed  at  first.  We 
may  be  beaten  at  first ;  again  and  again  perhaps  de- 
feated and  disgraced.  Our  disasters  will  come  at  the 
beginning  of  this  war ;  theirs  are  to  come  by  and  by." 
Could  the  actual  facts  have  been  more  exactly  fore- 
told ?  "  One  of  two  things,"  said  he  that  day,  —  "  either 
slavery  is  to  come  to  an  end  in  this  struggle,  or  else 
the  free  and  the  slave  States  must  agree  to  separate." 
But  in  any  event,  he  concluded,  "slavery  is  sure  to  fall; 
for  it  is  a  sin  against  God,  and  a  crime  against  man." 
This  sermon  was  printed  in  full  in  the  "  National  Anti- 
Slavery  Standard  "  of  New  York. 

At  this  time  he  published,  in  pamphlet  form,  a  letter, 
addressed  to  Hon.  Charles  Sumner,  entitled  "  Secession, 
Concession,  or  Self-Possession  —  Which  ?  "  the  writer, 
"A  Massachusetts  Citizen."  The  following  extract 
gives  its  key-note :  "  We  can  never  purchase  a  perma- 
nent settlement  of  the  controversy  between  freedom 
and  slavery  but  by  firm  resistance  to  its  encroachments. 
Every  other  -solution  of  the  difficulty  must  fail  here- 
after, as  it  has  failed  heretofore.  Only,  the  longer  the 
solution  is  deferred,  the  vvorse  our  position  will  be." 

From  a  sermon  preached  by  him  in  Boston,  Septem- 


^.Y  TI-SLA  VER  Y.  243 

ber  26,  1862,  being  the  Sunday  following  President 
Lincoln's  first  proclamation  relating  to  slavery,  a  ser- 
mon to  which  he  gave  the  title  "  The  Plagues  of  Egypt 
and  America,"  a  few  extracts  must  be  given  :  — 

"  The  proclamation  of  Lincoln  has  been  j'l'operly 
called  the  most  important  state  paper  issued  in  this 
country  since  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  It 
fairly  and  fully  commits  the  government  and  people 
to  universal  freedom.  It  is  not  to  be  taken  back  again, 
no  matter  what  happens.  I  should  have  been  glad  if 
it  were  made  immediate.  I  should  have  been  glad  if 
put  on  principles  of  justice  and  right,  not  of  mere  war 
necessity.  .  .  .  Nevertheless  the  deed  is  done.  Pro- 
spective in  form,  in  essence  and  influence  it  is  immedi- 
ate. The  sword  has  cut  the  knot  which  policy  could 
not  untie.  No  more  fear  now  of  any  false  peace.  The 
South  now  can  never  forgive  Abraham  Lincoln.  .  .  . 
No  more  false  and  treasonable  policies  at  the  North. 
All  men  must  choose  their  side  now.  No  more  deceit- 
ful compromises.  .  .  .  We,  at  the  North,  can  breathe 
freely ;  we  are  not  obliged  any  longer  to  support  slav- 
ery with  one  hand,  while  we  fight  it  with  the  other." 

He  shows  the  parallels  of  the  plagues  of  Egyi>t  and 
America  with  much  ingenuity,  and  the  lesson,  alike  in 
both  cases,  namely  :  "  Let  my  people  go,  that  they  may 
serve  me."  And  it  is  interesting  to  note  how,  at  the 
very  outset  of  the  war,  he  was  looking  forward  to  see 
how  "  to  build  the  future  fair."  ''  There  will  be  a  vast 
deal  for  us  to  do,  after  this  war  is  over,  in  educating  the 
blacks,  in  colonizing  the  slave  States  with  a  better  so- 
ciety, in  building  up  good  institutions  there.  ...  If 
this  nation  rises  to  a  sense  of  its  duty  and  opportunity, 
it  will  become  the  pole-star  of  mankind,  the  leading 
race  of  humanit}',  the  christianizing  people  of  the 
earth." 

He  gave  striking  proof  of  his  interest  for  tlie  col- 
ored people,  as  well  as  of  his  regard  for  justice,  in  the 


244  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

matter  of  the  enlistment  of  colored  troops  in  this  war. 
"  While  we  paid,"  he  says,  '^  the  white  troops  thirteen 
dollars  a  month  and  clothing,  the  colored  troops  re- 
ceived but  ten  dollars,  from  which  three  dollars  were 
taken  for  clothing,  leaving  but  seven  dollars  for  their 
pay.  Governor  Andrew  felt  great  indignation  at  this 
unjust  discrimination.  He  showed  me  a  letter  he  had 
written  to  the  Massachusetts  Senators  in  Congress,  re- 
questing them  to  urge  upon  Congress  and  the  President 
a  redress  of  this  inequality.  '  I  will  not  rest,'  said  he 
to  the  Senators,  '  until  this  injustice  is  removed.  I  will 
not  allow  you  any  rest  until  it  is  removed.'  I  told 
Governor  Andrew  that  I  was  going  to  Washington,  and 
that  I  would  take  the  letter  to  Mr.  Sumner  and  Mr. 
Wilson,  and  would  try  to  see  the  Attorney-General,  who 
then  was  James  Speed,  the  son  of  my  old  Louisville 
friend,  Judge  John  Speed.  I  was  to  preach  in  the  hall 
of  the  House  of  Kepresentatives  the  following  Sunday ; 
and  I  took  occasion  to  describe  in  my  sermon  the  char- 
acter and  conduct  of  those  colored  troops.  I  told  how 
the  Massachusetts  legislature  had  voted  to  send  money 
to  the  colored  regiments  in  South  Carolina,  to  make  up 
the  full  amount  for  all  the  time  they  had  been  in  the 
service.  These  troops  had  steadily  refused  the  inferior 
pay,  and  had  gone  without  pay  for  some  time.  The 
State  agents  who  carried  the  money  explained  to  the 
troops  that  Massachusetts  was  not  willing  that  they 
should  serve  without  full  pay ;  and  they  were  to  be  told 
that  Governor  Andrew  was  anxious  that  they  should  re- 
ceive the  State  money.  The  soldiers  consulted  among 
themselves,  and  one  was  apjDointed  to  reply.  He  said 
they  thanked  the  State  of  Massachusetts,  and  Governor 
Andrew,  and  the  gentlemen  who  had  brought  the 
money,  but  they  did  not  consider  themselves  as  troops 
of  Massachusetts.  They  were  United  States  soldiers, 
and  would  not  take  the  Massachusetts  money,  nor  even 
the  ten   dollars  offered   by  Government,  though   their 


^.Y  TI-SLA  VEH  Y.  245 

families  were  suffering  for  it,  until  they  could  have 
what  was  justly  their  clue ;  meantime,  they  meant  to  do 
their  duty  just  as  well  as  if  paid.  \Vhen  I  had  told 
that  story,  I  said  to  the  members  of  Congress  in  my 
audience,  '  If  this  had  been  done  by  Greeks  or  Komans, 
it  would  be  told  in  our  school  books,  and  our  children 
would  have  been  taught  to  read  it  as  an  example  of 
heroism.  But  as  it  is  done  by  colored  soldiers,  we  do 
not  think  much  of  it.  Nevertheless,  in  the  sight  of  hu- 
manity and  of  history,  I  would  rather  be  one  of  those 
colored  soldiers,  doing  my  duty  as  a  man,  and  refusing 
the  money  till  I  could  get  justice  with  it,  than  a  mem- 
ber of  Congress,  receiving  my  pay  regularly,  and  sitting 
in  my  comfortable  seat,  and  not  able  to  muster  courage 
to  pass  a  law  to  pay  those  soldiers  their  just  debt.'  I 
supposed,"  adds  Mr.  Clarke,  "  they  would  be  displeased  ; 
but  instead  of  that  they  applauded."  ^ 

The  w^ork  which  he  and  the  Church  of  the  Disciples 
did  for  the  freed  people,  through  the  whole  period  of 
the  war  and  in  the  following  years,  should  be  at  least 
referred  to  here.  Early  relief  was  sent  to  them,  — suj)- 
plies  of  whatever  was  most  needed  as  they  entered  on 
the  new  life  of  freedom,  and  teachers,  who  would  not 
only  teach  them  in  matters  of  useful  knowledge,  but 
also  carry  a  Christian  sympathy  and  a  true  human  inter- 
est in  their  welfare  into  their  humble  homes. 

Still  more  should  it  be  said,  though  it  is  sufficiently 
obvious,  that  the  source  and  spring  of  all  Mr.  Clarke's 
labors  against  slavery  were  in  his  Christian  belief,  in 
his  religious  sense  of  duty.  There,  in  the  depths  of  his 
nature,  was  the  primal  fountain  of  his  early  testimony, 
on  slave-tilled  soil,  against  slavery,  and  of  his  persistent, 
brave,  and  ever  hopeful  action  against  it  to  tlie  end. 
He  once  expressed  this  broad,  inclusive  idea  of  duty 
thus  :  "  I  have  known  very  good  i)eoj)le,  of  culture 
and  education,  who  might  have  done   good  in   a  large 

^  Anti-Slucery  Days,  p.  211. 


246  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

circle,  but  who  became  very  narrow  by  adopting,  as  their 
rule  of  life,  the  idea  of  '  doing  the  nearest  duty.'  With 
this  rule,"  he  said,  ''  they  cared  only  for  the  circle  just 
about  them.  The  interests  of  society,  of  humanity,  of 
the  universal  Church,  of  the  age,  were  indifferent  to 
them.  They  did  not  care  for  the  cause  of  truth,  peace, 
freedom,  human  virtue,  human  happiness.  The  suffer- 
ings of  the  slave,  the  prisoner,  the  insane,  the  ignorant 
were  not  in  the  sphere  of  their  nearest  duties,  and  so 
were  unheeded.  I  have  seen  people  of  the  highest  re- 
finement, ornaments  of  their  own  homes,  who  cared  for 
nothing  beyond  them,  and  who  might  have  learned  a 
lesson  from  the  poor  negro  woman  whose  heart  was  in- 
terested in  the  missions  of  her  church  in  India  and 
Burmah,  and  who  sheltered  under  her  roof,  at  the  risk 
of  ruin  to  herself,  the  fugitive  slave."  ^ 

At  the  dedication  of  the  West  Eoxbury  Soldiers' 
Monument,  September  14,  1871,  he  gave  the  address. 
In  it  he  described  the  power  with  Avhich  the  National 
Government  had  had  to  contend :  "  The  slave  power ;  an 
oligarchy  of  about  four  hundred  thousand  slaveholders, 
owning  some  four  millions  of  slaves,  worth  three  thou- 
sand millions  of  dollars.  .  .  .  United  by  common  inter- 
ests, with  the  single  paramount  purpose  of  maintaining 
and  extending  slavery,  it  ruled  the  South  with  a  rod  of 
iron,  allowing  no  freedom  of  speech,  of  the  press,  or  of 
the  pulpit.  By  means  of  this  perfect  union,  it  had  ob- 
tained the  control  of  the  jSTational  Government,  and,  be- 
fore 1860,  had  taken  ^^ossession  of  the  whole  national 
organization.  It  annexed  Texas  in  1845,  defeated  the 
Wilmot  Proviso  in  1846,  passed  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill 
in  1850,  repealed  the  ^Missouri  Compromise  in  1854,  ob- 
tained the  Dred  Scott  decision  in  1857.  It  controlled 
both  Houses  of  Congress,  possessed  the  Executive,  and 
directed  the  decisions  of  the  Judiciary ;  so  holding  in 
its  hand  the  army  and  navy  of  the  Union. 

1   Christian  Register,  October  31,  1889.     Selections  from  his  MSS. 


ANTI-SLAVERY.  247 

"But,  on  the  other  side,  there  had  grown  up,  with 
wonderful  rapidity-,  a  mighty  opposing  force.  ...  It 
was  the  anti-slavery  opinion  of  the  Xorth,  whioli  had 
been  opposed  first  by  mobs,  then  by  ridicule,  lastly  by 
arguments,  but  had  conquered  them  all.  As  Herod  the 
king,  in  the  midst  of  his  power  and  glory,  feared  John 
the  Baptist,  '  knowing  that  he  was  a  just  nuin,'  so  tlie 
slave  po>ver,  which  feared  nothing  else,  feared  the  anti- 
slavery  platform.  William  Lloyd  Garrison  might  have 
used  the  words  of  Pope,  and  said  :  — 

'  Yes,  I  am  proud  ;  I  must  be  proud  to  see 
Men,  not  afraid  of  God,  afraid  of  me.'  " 

And  in  the  same  connection  he  spoke  of  that  wonderful 
story  of  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  —  "  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin,"  —  "  inspired  by  genius  and  profound  convic- 
tion," which  did  so  much  to  stir  and  concentrate  the 
national  enthusiasm  and  purpose.  He  rendered  merited 
tribute  to  the  services  of  West  Eoxbury  (the  place  of 
his  own  residence)  during  the  war,  and  referred  to  a 
personal  contribution  of  his  own  in  words  we  cannot 
omit :  "  In  this  town  was  recruited  and  drilled  one  of 
the  finest  of  the  Massachusetts  regiments.  I  happened 
to  be  the  owner  of  Brook  Farm  in  18G1 ;  and  when  the 
Second  ISIassachusetts  was  about  to  be  organized,  I  of- 
fered it  to  my  friend  Morris  Copeland,  quartermaster  of 
that  regiment,  and  it  was  accepted.  ...  I  never  raised 
much  of  a  crop  upon  it  before  ;  but  in  1801  it  bore  the 
greatest  crop  of  any  farm  in  Massachusetts,  in  the  cour- 
age, devotion,  and  military  renown  of  the  ofHcers  and 
men  of  that  noble  regiment." 

In  this  address  he  expressed,  as  upon  all  other  fitting 
occasions,  his  admiration  of  the  character,  ability,  and 
extraordinary  services  of  Abraliam  Lincoln,  Bresident 
during  the  entire  period  of  the  war,  —  a  i)rovid('ntial 
man. 

In  March,  1873,  with  other  frirnds  of  Mr.   (iarrison. 


248  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

Mr.  Clarke  addressed  a  letter  to  that  gentleman,  asking 
him  to  write,  for  publication,  the  history  of  his  life,  — 
a  matter,  they  say,  which  they  have  very  much  at 
heart,  and  which  they  urge  "  both  on  public  and  private 
considerations,"  and  as  a  much-needed  "  example  of  the 
genuine  happiness  and  true  success  of  a  life  devoted  to 
a  great  and  unselfish  purpose."  ^ 

In  the  "  North  American  Eeview  "  of  January,  1875, 
is  an  article  by  Mr.  Clarke,  which  may  well  be  consulted 
by  those  who  desire  to  learn  his  position  and  course  in 
relation  to  slavery,  and  the  spirit  in  which  he  opposed 
it ;  and  by  any  others  seeking  a  condensed  history  of 
the  origin  and  growth  of  slavery  in  this  country,  of  its 
attempt  to  obtain  supreme  power,  and  of  its  ultimate 
overthrow.  It  takes  Hon.  Henry  Wilson's  "  History  of 
the  Eise  and  Fall  of  the  Slave  Power  "  as  its  text.  The 
most  striking  feature  of  the  article  is  an  account  of  the 
four  days'  contest  in  Congress,  in  February,  1836,  for 
the  "  right  of  petition ; "  when  John  Quincy  Adams 
met,  single-handed,  the  representatives  of  slavery,  and 
by  his  coolness,  intrepidity,  and  force  of  intellect,  com- 
pletely and  signally  defeated  them  all.  It  was  a  mem- 
orable chapter  of  the  national  history ;  and  Mr.  Clarke 
relates  it  with  spirit  and  interest. 

Early  in  1883,  Mr.  Clarke  gave,  in  his  church  in  Bos- 
ton, a  course  of  popular  lectures  on  the  "  Anti-Slavery 
Conflict  in  the  United  States,"  which  were  very  largely 
attended.  These  lectures  were  published  in  1884,  con- 
stituting the  volume  entitled  "Anti-Slavery  Days,"  to 
which  frequent  reference  is  made  in  this  chapter. 

Mr.  Clarke  was  never  a  member  of  the  Anti-Slavery 
Society;  not  because  principled -against  associated  ac- 
tion, for  he  was  a  member  of  other  societies,  and  held 
official  position  in  them.  Nor  could  it  have  been  be- 
cause of  any  odium  which  attached  to  such  membership 
in  the  minds  of  men  determined  to  tolerate  no  inter- 
1  Life  of  Mr.  Garrison,  vol.  iv.  p.  257. 


ANTI-SLAVERY.  249 

ference,  as  they  termed  it,  with  the  subject  of  slavery. 
That  would  have  had  little  weight  with  him.  He  was 
for  many  years  an  active  member,  and,  from  1.S71  to 
1878,  the  president,  of  the  jNIassachusetts  Woman  Suf- 
frage Association,  when  it  had  least  favor  in  the  pub- 
lic mind.  The  reason,  doubtless,  was  that  he  could 
not  fully  identify  himself  with  the  Anti-Slavery  Soci- 
ety. Its  course  was  probably  too  distinctly  aggressive 
to  meet  either  his  philosophy  or  his  taste.  It  paid  too 
little  regard  to  the  exceptional  cases.  It  was  earnest 
and  incisive,  while  he  sought  to  be  calm  and  deliberate. 
We  find  sufficient  explanation  of  his  course  in  the  fact 
that,  during  the  years  of  his  early  interest  in  the  sub- 
ject, he  misconceived  the  character  and  aim  of  the  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  as  he  himself  says  ;  *  and  in  the  un- 
questionable fact  that,  even  when  understanding  that 
society  better,  so  as  to  cooperate  with  them  on  many 
occasions,  he  still  felt  that,  as  preacher  and  writer,  he 
had  a  work  of  his  own  to  do,  which  he  could  more 
effectively  do  while  responsible  for  that,  and  that  alone. 
Few  men,  except  the  most  devoted  members  of  the 
Anti-Slavery  Society,  gave  more  time,  thouglit,  and 
labor  to  the  overthrow  of  slavery  than  'Mr.  Clarke  did. 
Early  impressed  with  the  sense  of  slavery's  transcend- 
ent evils  and  wrong,  steadily  growing  in  the  conviction 
that  he  had  a  duty  in  the  case  not  to  be  put  by,  lie 
never  retrograded,  or  grew  cold.  How  to  cn-ercome  and 
terminate  slavery  was  an  uppermost  thouglit  witli  him, 
a  problem  seldom  out  of  sight.  He  accepted  new  light ; 
he  corrected  mistaken  judgments.  During  the  long 
days  of  the  Anti-Slavery  Society's  effort  to  stir  a 
national  feeling  and  conscience  for  the  three  millions 
held  in  slavery  by  the  Nation's  united  ]>ower,  and 
when  every  attempt  to  get  the  ministers  mikI  cliurclios 
of  Boston,  of  all  denominations,  to  giv«'  a  hfljiing  liand 
almost  invariably  ended  in  a  refusal,  Mr.  Clarke  diil  not 

^   Anti-!Slavery  Days,  p.  'JJ. 


250  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

refuse.  It  was  known  that,  on  some  points,  he  differed 
with  the  society.  That  did  not  prevent  their  asking 
his  aid  again  and  again ;  nor  him  from  giving  it.  He 
knew  that  he  would  be  as  free,  on  the  platform  of  the 
Anti-Slavery  Society,  to  express  dissent  where  he  dif- 
fered as  to  join  in  advocacy  of  the  patriotic  and  Chris- 
tian principles  which  were  the  basis  of  that  society's 
action.  And  so  he  did  not  stand  aloof  from  the  Aboli- 
tionists. He  felt  himself  to  be  at  one  with  their  idea 
and  purpose.  They  gladly  w^elcomed  him  when  he 
came  among  them  ;  and  he  came  without  concealment 
and  without  compromise.  He  attended  their  meetings 
repeatedly,  and  made  there  his  strong  appeals  for  anti- 
slavery  action.  The  members  of  the  Anti-Slavery  So- 
ciety were  little  concerned  wath  the  matter  of  nominal 
membership,  when  one  gave  evidence  of  a  heart  right,  a 
conscience  alive,  and  an  eye  single  to  the  great  cause  of 
freedom  and  justice.  That  it  was  so  with  Mr.  Clarke, 
one  who  himself  was  a  constant,  adhering  member  of  the 
Anti-Slavery  Society  is  well  assured,  and  gladly  affirms. 
With  an  absolute  steadfastness  he  put  his  heart  and 
hand  to  every  recognized  and  approved  weapon  against 
slavery,  until  it  met  its  doom.  And  thus  he  spoke, 
when  the  work  was  done  :  "  Slavery  went  down  in  that 
dreadful  conflict,  never  to  rise  again.  In  a  single  gen- 
eration, and  in  the  lifetime  of  the  chief  agitator  himself, 
this  vast  revolution  was  accomplished.  Never  in  hu- 
man history  has  there  been  such  an  example  of  the 
power  of  conscience  in  gaining  a  victory  over  worldly 
interest ;  and  it  ought  to  be  an  encouragement  forever, 
for  all  who  contend  for  lowly  right  against  triumphant 
wrong,  for  unpopular  truth  against  fashion,  prejudice, 
and  power."  ^ 

1  Anti-Slavery  Days,  p.  10. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE    UNITARIAN    CHURCH. 

The  reader  has  already  seen  that  the  constitution  of 
Mr.  Clarke's  mind  enabled  him  to  put  himself  readily 
in  the  place  of  a  person  with  whom  he  was  carrying  on 
a  controversy.  He  was  of  a  social  nature,  and  indeed 
believed  in  the  cooperation  of  many  men.  He  worked 
cheerfully  and  happily  with  others,  probably  because 
he  did  not  antagonize  them.  The  diary,  therefore,  is 
full,  as  the  remembrances  of  his  friends  are  full,  of  the 
numerous  occasions  when  he  was  present  at  gatherings 
of  social,  reformatory,  and  political  parties.  He  gave 
much  time  to  these  different  interests,  but  it  was  time 
which  all  told  in  preparation  for  the  pulpit.  It  might 
be  added  that  he  sometimes  had  a  longing  for  a  wider 
field.  I  remember  that  in  the  year  1857,  when  we  be- 
longed to  the  New  England  Emigrant  Aid  Company, 
and  were  greatly  interested  in  the  fortunes  of  the  Ger- 
man colony  established  by  the  Prince  de  Solms  in 
southwestern  Texas,  he  said  to  me  cordially,  "  Let  us 
both  go  out  into  that  country,  and  si)end  the  rest  of  our 
lives  in  doing  something  that  we  can  see  when  it  is 
done,  so  that  we  shall  know  what  our  mark  on  the 
world  is,  as  Winthrop  knew  when  his  life  was  ended 
here."  I  have  sometimes  been  sorry  that  we  did  not 
do  so.  Certainly  he  would  have  been  an  admirable 
leader  in  any  such  enterprise. 

He  had  gone  to  Louisville  as  a  missionary  i>reacher. 
With  his  friends,  "William  G.  Eliot  and  Ejdiraim  Pea- 
body,  he  had  established  the  "  Western  Moesenger  "  as 


252  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

a  literary  organ  which  should  give  them  an  opportu- 
nity, once  a  month,  to  proclaim  their  views.  He  never 
regretted  his  work  there ;  and  to  the  end  of  his  life  he 
was  found  active  in  all  efforts  for  giving  breadth  and 
depth  to  the  religious  life  of  ^'the  West,"  whatever 
region  might  be  called  by  that  word  of  changing  mean- 
ing. But  he  returned  to  Boston  with  the  feeling  that 
the  Unitarian  Church  needed  more  spiritual  life  and 
more  heat  in  the  region  of  its  central  activity.^  And, 
without  finding  fault  with  anybody  else,  he  had  under- 
taken, in  the  formation  of  the  Church  of  the  Disciples 
at  Boston,  to  show  his  "  Ideal  Church."  ^ 

I  have  already  said  that  his  appearance  in  the  little 
circle  of  Boston  churches  was  not  welcomed  with  en- 
thusiasm by  all  the  ministers  of  those  churches.  But 
by  the  churches  of  New  England,  inside  the  Unitarian 
communion  and  outside,  he  was  cordially  received  wher- 
ever he  was  known ;  and  before  long  this  was  true  of 
Boston  also.  For  the  Unitarian  leaders  had  found  out 
that  their  work  was  not  to  proclaim  a  new  theology, 
but  to  lift  religion  to  a  higher  plane  ;  and  in  all  the 
churches  that  were  alive,  laymen  and  ministers  were 
going  about  that  business.  For  ten  or  fifteen  years  be- 
fore the  Civil  War,  the  most  important  questions  of 
social  life  were  under  general  discussion  in  that  region, 
and  men  and  women  had  to  make  up  their  own  minds 

1  I  remember,  many  years  ago,  Dr.  Channing  expected  and  hoped 
for  just  such  a  revival.  I  made  a  short  visit  to  him  at  NeAvport, 
and  he  spent  all  the  summer  day  saying-,  "  When  is  more  life  to 
come  among  Unitarians  ?  Is  life  to  come  from  Cambridge  ?  I  hope 
for  life  from  it.  I  don't  despair  of  Cambridge."  I  remember  the 
dear,  good  man,  before  he  bade  xas  good-night,  kneeled  down,  and 
prayed  still  for  the  same  thing,  —  that  the  Father  of  all  would  send 
more  life  into  our  hearts,  and  wake  us  up  to  the  truths  of  the  living 
God.  —  Mr.  Clarke's  Speech  at  the  Annual  Meeting  of*  the  American 
Unitarian  Association,  May,  1SG6. 

2  At  about  the  time,  as  may  be  observed,  that  Mr.  William  Ward 
amazed  England  by  publishing  his  "  Ideal  Church." 


THE  UNITARIAN  CHURCH.  253 

as  to  their  i)ers()ii;il  duty  in  the  matter  of  shivery. 
Whatever  judgment  may  be  passed  on  the  courage  or 
decision  of  the  church  in  its  other  communions,  the 
American  free  lances  did  not,  on  the  whole,  fail  in  the 
great  appeal ;  and  with  the  free  lances,  in  practice,  must 
the  Unitarian  Church  always  be  classified.  In  such 
questions  as  came  up  between  the  annexation  of  Texas 
in  1845  and  the  firing  on  Sumter  in  18G1,  men  and 
women  were  indifferent  to  renewed  threshings  of  the 
old  straw  of  theology  or  criticism,  and  it  would  have 
been  impossible  to  re-awaken  an  interest  in  discussions 
of  foreknowledge,  election,  the  fall  of  man,  and  vica- 
rious atonement.  Indeed,  the  leaders  of  Orthodoxy  had 
shown  their  wisdom  by  declining  further  controversy 
on  sffch  themes. 

]\[r.  Clarke's  hope,  on  returning  from  Louisville,  was 
that  the  Unitarian  life,  as  presented  with  that  eager- 
ness, tenderness,  and  faith  of  which  he  and  his  friends 
were  conscious,  would  win  the  sympathy  of  evangelical 
believers,  and  that  it  would  prove  that  the  gulf  was 
not,  after  all,  so  wide  between  a  free  theology  and  that 
which  still  held  to  the  Calvinistic  formulas  manu- 
factured for  Kew  England  churches  in  the  days  of 
Whitefield.  In  the  early  days  of  the  Church  of  the 
Disciples,  there  were  advances  made  by  him  towards 
those  whom  New  England  calls  the  "  Orthodox,"  which, 
if  they  had  been  wise,  they  would  have  received  more 
cordially  than  they  did.  I  have  already  mentioned  that 
Kev.  Edward  N.  Kirk,  of  the  Mount  Vernon  Church, 
preached  in  ]\Ir.  Clarke's  pulpit  one  Sunday.^  To  ]\[r. 
Clarke's  mind,  the  invitation  to  do  so  simply  indicated 
the  same   breadth  and  good  faitli  which    invited   the 

'  Readers  in  other  sections  of  tlie  country  will  hardly  niuhrstnnd 
that  not  ten  instances  have  occurred  in  sixty  years  wh.'u  an  '"  Kvan- 
gelical"  minister  of  a  Boston  church  has  spoken  in  a  "  Lihtral  "  pul- 
pit in  that  city,  and  not  five  vln'U  a  minister  of  a  '*  Lilxnil  "  church 
has  spoken  in  an  '*  P^vangelical ''  pulpit. 


254  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

heretic  Theodore  Parker  to  preach  there  at  another  time. 
But  to  the  popular  mind  of  that  little  company  who 
cared  for  such  things^  the  invitation  to  preach  meant 
a  coquetry  with  Orthodoxy,  for  Mr.  Kirk  was  perhaps 
the  most  distinguished  preacher  of  the  self-called  Evan- 
gelical school  of  the  place  and  time.  He  would  not,  in 
his  wildest  dreams,  have  thought  of  asking  Mr.  Clarke 
to  preach  in  his  pulpit. 

In  the  happy  freedom  of  American  life,  there  is  but 
little  sectarianism  outside  of  the  pulpit  and  of  the 
denominational  newspapers.  So  soon,  therefore,  as  Mr. 
Clarke  began  to  print  his  books  and  his  sermons,  they 
found  their  way  right  and  left,  and  eventually  they 
were  read  more  widely  among  people  who  knew  little 
about  the  Unitarian  Church  than  among  those^who 
were  enrolled  in  its  communion. 

The  Unitarian  Church  itself,  so  soon  as  it  was  re- 
lieved from  the  ungracious  task  of  controversy  as  to 
the  text  of  Scripture,  was  in  all  quarters  rising  to  un- 
derstand its  true  position,  as  the  "  Church  of  the  Holy 
Spirit."  In  practice  its  business  is  to  do  what  it  can  to 
bring  in  the  kingdom  of  God.  To  find  out  how  that 
should  be  done,  each  child  of  God  must  look  for  His 
direction  and  listen  to  His  voice,  sure  that  the  pure  in 
heart  will  see  Him,  and  that  He  is  not  far  from  any  of 
them.  Wherever  they  find  help  for  such  communion 
with  God,  or  for  such  duty  to  man,  it  is  their  busi- 
ness to  seek  it.  This  may  be  in  Thomas  a  Kempis  ;  it 
may  be  in  Kant's  Critique  ;  it  may  be  under  the  stars, 
on  Ben  Nevis ;  it  may  be  in  putting  up  the  widow  Fla- 
herty's stove.  It  might  be  in  reading  the  Greek  trag- 
edies ;  it  might  be  in  work  over  the  compound  micro- 
scope ;  it  might  be  in  the  battles  of  the  Abolitionist 
platform  ;  it  might  be  in  listening  to  the  Ave  Maria,  in 
the  Sistine  Chapel.  The  Unitarian  Church  was  finding 
out  that  it  was  not  a  "  sect "  or  "  denomination,"  and 
never  could  be ;  but  that  it  was  in  accord  with  all 
children  of  God  who  were  seeking  him  anywhere. 


THE  UXITARIAN  CHURCH.  255 

In  Boston,  its  ministers  had  worried  themselves  with 
the  question,  already  alluded  to,  whether  Theodore 
Parker,  with  his  iconoelasms,  could  be  received  into 
this  wide  communion  of  the  sons  of  God.  And  they 
undertook  to  accentuate  their  disai)proval  of  his  doc- 
trine of  miracles  by  deciding  not  to  invite  him  to  preach 
the  Thursday  lecture.  This  was  given  by  different 
clergymen,  and  was  attended  by  the  ministers  who  luul 
assembled  for  their  weekly  club,  and  by  a  few  others, 
the  larger  proportion  being  women.  There  were  often 
not  more  than  fifty  present,  though,  if  the  preacher 
were  especially  attractive,  there  might  be  from  three  to 
five  hundred.  This  was  the  only  public  sentence  which 
could  be  inflicted  on  the  preacher  who  afterwards  called 
himself  the  minister  of  the  *'  Twenty-eighth  CongregOr 
tional  Society."  For  all  Unitarian  ministers  served 
pure  Congregational  churches.  And,  in  the  true  Con- 
gregational order,  no  church  can  make  a  creed  or  cove- 
nant for  any  church  but  itself,  or  in  any  way  enforce 
one.  Mr.  Clarke  marked  his  dissent  from  the  counsels 
of  his  seniors  by  exchanging  pulpit  services,  as  has 
been  said,  with  !Mr.  Parker.  By  the  people  at  large  his 
attitude  was  never  misunderstood.  It  was  seen  that  he 
was  practically  standing  for  that  which  he  had  always 
maintained  theoretically,  —  the  position  of  catholic 
freedom.  I)etween  himself  and  ^fr.  l\arker  there  was 
an  entire  understanding,  and  each  had  confidence  in  the 
other's  sincerity.  Their  close  connection  in  political 
matters,  particularly  on  the  anti-slavery  platform,  often 
brought  them  together.  But  each  of  them  knew  tliat 
in  the  pulpit  neither  would  make  the  same  j)roclama- 
tion  as  the  other. 

Speaking  roughly,  the  period  of  his  residence  in 
Meadville,  while  he  was  recovering  his  health,  marks 
the  division  line  between  his  work  as  the  minister  of  tlie 
Church  of  the  I)iseij)les  alone  and  his  work  as  a  leader  of 
the  Unitarian  Church  in  America.     The  read»'r  has  seen 


256  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDEXCE. 

how  much  he  did,  in  a  literary  way,  in  those  years  at 
Meadville  ;  and  from  that  time  forward  he  is  to  be 
spoken  of  as  a  man  of  letters.  In  the  proper  place  I 
will  put  as  nearly  complete  a  list  of  his  publications  as 
we  have  been  able  to  obtain.  It  will  be  seen  how  many 
of  them  belong  to  these  years  of  what  one  calls  retire- 
ment  at  Meadville.  Their  publication  followed  rapidly, 
and  now  he  begins  to  be  known  throughout  the  country. 
"  The  Doctrine  of  Prayer "  was  circulated  widely 
among  thoughtful  people  of  all  communions,  and  was 
read  with  such  interest  that  many  were  moved  to 
write  j)ersonally  to  the  author.  This  gave  to  him  the 
position  he  was  well  adapted  to  fill,  of  mediating  be- 
tween different  communions,  and  of  showing  to  each 
what  were  the  merits  of  the  other.  It  was  a  good  thing 
for  us  (of  the  Unitarian  Church)  that  we  had  a  man 
who  brought  us  and  the  Orthodox  people  nearer  to 
each  other,  and  there  were  few  among  us  in  whom 
the  Orthodox  had  the  same  confidence  that  they  had  in 
him.  He  understood  the  language  in  which  the  Evan- 
gelical churches  speak  as  few  Unitarians  do,  and  was 
indeed  able  to  speak  it  himself  with  perfect  sincerity. 
His  nature  was  so  thoroughly  poetical  that  he  knew 
what  was  meant  as  a  poetical  expression ;  and  he  did 
not  hold  down  a  strain  of  Dr.  Doddridge  or  an  ejacula- 
tion of  Dr.  Finney  to  its  literal  and  grammatical  mean- 
ing. "  The  Truths  and  Errors  of  Orthodoxy  "  was  a 
second  book  which  did  great  good  in  showing  to  earnest 
persons,  on  both  sides  of  the  imagined  gulf  between  the 
Liberal  and  the  Evangelical  churches,  that  it  was  not 
very  much  of  a  gulf  after  all.  Indeed,  wherever  people 
read  his  books,  they  found  out,  what  may  be  regarded  as 
a  general  truth,  that  most  intelligent  Christians,  so  far 
as  their  everyday  religion  goes,  are  in  practical  agree- 
ment, though  probably  without  knowing  it.  When  they 
come  to  state  occasions,  and  to  the  full-dress  uniform 
of  established  creeds  and  confessions,  they  appear,  of 
course,  in  a  different  array. 


THE  UNITARIAN  CHURCH.  257 

He  rightly  apprehended  the  need  and  the  determina- 
tion of  the  Unitarian  Church  in  the  region  in  which  he 
was  brought  up.  This  was  made  ch^ar  enough  by  every 
change  in  its  pulpit  in  the  ten  years  after  he  came  to 
Boston  from  Louisville.  In  place  of  the  ethical,  criti- 
cal, and  analytical  preaching  of  the  past  generation, 
came  in  such  preaching  as  that  of  Ephraim  Peabody, 
F.  D.  Huntington,  J.  I.  T.  Coolidge,  S.  H.  Winkley, 
Starr  King,  Frederic  T.  Gray,  and  K.  C.  AVaterston. 
No  one  who  heard  either  of  these  preachers  ventured  to 
say  that  the  Unitarian  pulpit  was  cold  or  hard  in  its 
utterances.  Mr.  Huntington  and  Mr.  Coolidge  found, 
as  they  thought,  the  working  forces  of  the  Unitarian 
Church  unworthy  of  their  missionary  eagerness,  and 
they  were  unwilling  to  be  compromised  by  the  latitudi- 
narianism  inevitable  in  a  communion  which  has  no 
creed.  They  left  the  Unitarian  Church,  therefore,  for 
the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  wdiich  they  have  ever 
since  adorned.  Starr  King,  in  1860,  went  to  California, 
where,  in  1864,  he  died,  as  a  soldier  might  die  in  battle. 
Mr.  Peabody  and  Mr.  Gray  were  called  to  higher  serv- 
ice in  the  very  prime  of  human  life.  With  all  of  these 
ministers,  as  wdth  Mr.  Winkley  and  ^Ir.  Waterston, 
Mr.  Clarke  ahvays  held  relations  of  personal  friendship. 
And  if  any  impression  has  been  given  that  at  the  out- 
set the  Church  of  the  Disciples  seemed  an  intruder 
among  its  decorous  fraternity  of  the  older  Boston 
churches  of  the  Liberal  communion,  the  reader  should 
understand  that  nothing  was  needed  but  a  knowledge  of 
its  activity  and  devotion,  and  an  acquaintance  with  its 
earnest  and  catholic  minister,  to  remove  every  petty 
jealousy  which  watched  its  birth. 

He  became  a  director  in  the  Unitarian  Association  in 
May,  1845.  This  association  is  at  oiu-e  the  ^lissionary 
Board  and  the  Publishing  Board  of  the  American  Uni- 
tarian Church.  Its  activities  then  were  very  small 
compared  with  what  they  are  now.     Such  as  they  were, 


258  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

tliey  were  quickened  and  helped  forward  by  his  good 
sense  and  energy.  And  then,  as  always,  he  had  at  heart 
the  interests  of  the  divinity  school  at  Meadville,  and 
the  increase  of  the  number  of  liberal  pulpits  in  the 
West. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  Unitarian  Association  in  1859, 
a  plan  which  he  had  himself  favored  was  brought  for- 
ward, by  which  the  general  secretary  of  that  association 
should  work  without  salary,  and  the  only  salaried  officer 
should  be  an  office  clerk.  It  was  understood,  when  this 
plan  was  proposed,  that  Mr.  Clarke  should  be  the  gen- 
eral secretary  who  was  to  serve  on  these  terms.  The 
association  rejected  the  plan,  however,  and  chose  him 
general  secretary,  fixing  the  salary  at  not  less  than  two 
thousand  nor  more  than  three  thousand  dollars  a  year, 
including  his  traveling  expenses.  After  this  vote  was 
passed,  Mr.  Clarke  was  elected.  He  says  in  the  next 
annual  report  that  had  he  been  present  he  would  have 
declined  the  office  ;  but  he  decided  to  accept  it  for  a 
year.  He  made  it  a  condition,  however,  that  he  should 
not  resign  the  pastoral  care  of  his  own  church,  and  that 
he  should  be  allowed  to  preach  at  home  at  least  one 
Sunday  in  every  month.  Upon  these  conditions,  which 
were  cheerfully  acceded  to  by  the  executive  committee, 
he  endeavored  to  fulfill  during  a  year  the  duties  of  the 
office.  Instead  of  two  or  three  thousand  dollars,  he 
thought  it  right  to  take  in  all  twelve  hundred  dollars. 
But  the  result  of  the  year's  experience  with  him  was  to 
confirm,  on  the  whole,  his  opinion  in  favor  of  the  pro- 
posal which  was  rejected  the  previous  year. 

The  association,  however,  did  not  return  to  that  plan, 
but  retained  his  services,  by  agreeing  that  while  he  was 
still  to  perform  the  home  duty  he  need  leave  his  own 
pulpit  but  one  Sunday  in  every  month.  The  truth  was, 
that  the  wisdom  of  his  administration  and  the  inspira- 
tion which  he  gave  were  widely  felt.  His  conduct  of 
the  "  Monthly  Journal,"  of  which  he  wrote  the  greater 


THE   UNITARIAN  CHURCH.  269 

part  himself,  brought  him  into  rehition  with  miuiy  of 
the  most  intelligent  persons  in  all  the  ehurehes ;  and 
whoever  wishes  to  study  his  work,  either  as  a  minister 
or  as  a  theologian,  will  do  well  to  possess  himself  of 
the  volumes  of  that  journal  whieh  he  edited. 

FROM    THE    '•MONTHLY    JOURNAL"    FOR   AUGUST,  18C0. 

Having  just  returned  from  a  tour  in  which  we  preached 
in  Cincinnati  and  Pittsburgh,  and  attended  the  com- 
mencements at  Antioch  and  jMeadville,  we  would  like 
to  give  the  readers  of  the  "Monthly  Journal"  a  brief 
account  of  a  few  of  our  observations. 

Our  annual  May  meetings  were  over.  Mr.  Calthrop 
was  ordained  at  Marblehead ;  a  few  farewell  words  to 
Theodore  Parker  had  been  spoken  ;  and,  traveling-bag 
in  hand,  we  departed  for  Cincinnati. 

I  wish  I  could  magnetize  all  the  readers  of  the 
"Monthly  Journal"  with  the  electric  life  of  the  great 
West.  While  the  influence  is  yet  strong  within  me  I 
would  communicate  something  of  the  strange  power 
w^hich  comes  to  us  from  that  surging,  rushing  flood  of 
human  activity.  P)y  it  we  are  lifted  above  mere  forms 
and  conventional  barriers  ;  w^e  communicate  more  freely, 
soul  with  soul.  The  weight  of  years  and  of  cares  falls 
from  us  as  we  descend  the  Alleghanies.  .  .  . 

There  is  no  way  to  get  rid  of  our  ignorance  and  nar- 
rowness but  by  going  to  see  other  parts  of  the  country 
with  our  own  eyes.  All  the  union  meetings  ever  lield 
do  not  do  half  as  much  to  preserve  the  Union  as  a  single 
railroad.  Go  and  see.  Look  with  your  own  eyes  at  the 
marvelous  life,  ever  flowing  forward,  of  this  bit  of 
Anglo-Saxondom.  .  .  . 

From  1833  to  1840,  I  used  to  travel  some  three  thou- 
sand miles  every  year,  mostly  by  steand)()at  and  stage- 
coach. On  the  rivers  and  lakes  we  went  by  steamboat ; 
but  we  traversed  Ohio,  Kentucky,  Illinois,  Pennsylvania, 
Virginia,  and  New  York  by  stage-coach.      For  six  or 


260  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

seven  days  together  I  have  ridden  in  a  stage-coach  with 
the  same  party  of  travelers.  I  often  crossed  the  Alle- 
ghanies  in  Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  and  Virginia  in  the 
old  and  slow  stage-coach ;  sometimes  walking  for  hours 
in  advance  of  the  carriage  ;  sometimes  crossing  the  sum- 
mits at  midnight,  when  they  were  covered  with  ice  and 
snow  ;  sometimes,  in  the  early  dawn  of  a  summer  morn- 
ing, looking  abroad  from  a  high  mountain  water-shed, 
over  a  vast  wilderness  of  forest,  here  and  there  spotted 
with  little  green  farm-openings,  through  which  the 
white  road  wandered  on  to  the  far  horizon.  Or  some- 
times we  would,  at  the  same  hour,  see  the  morning  star 
above  us  in  the  clear,  deep  sky ;  while,  below,  the 
whole  valley  Avould  be  full  of  white  mist,  lying  like  a 
vast  lake,  through  whose  surface  the  hilltops  came  up 
as  islands.  And  oh,  what  singular  combinations  of  trav- 
elers !  merchants  going  East  to  buy  goods  ;  Methodist 
ministers  going  to  their  stations  ;  gamblers  from  Texas  ; 
river  pilots  ;  drovers  returning  home  after  selling  their 
cattle  ;  atheists,  Presbyterians,  shoulder-hitters,  Eo- 
man  Catholic  priests  ;  women  going  to  look  for  runa- 
way husbands  ;  men  with  bowie-knives  sticking  out  of 
their  jackets  ;  men  with  Bibles  in  their  pockets.  But, 
wild  and  heterogeneous  as  our  party  often  was,  we  usu- 
ally became  interested  in  each  other  after  a  day  or  two ; 
and  it  is  strange  how  sorry  we  were  to  part  even  with 
our  whiskey-drinking  and  blaspheming  companions.  .  .  . 
The  scholastics  disputed  concerning  this  question : 
AVhether,  when  angels  have  occasion  to  go  from  one 
place  to  another,  they  are  obliged  to  go  through  the  in- 
termediate spaces.  However  it  ma}"  be  with  angels,  it 
is  certainly  true  concerning  railway  travelers  that  they 
are  not  in  any  intermediate  places  while  going  from 
Dan  to  Beersheba.  They  alight,  like  birds,  at  one 
point,  then  at  another ;  all  between  goes  for  nothing. 

'  *  All  beside  was  empty  waste  ; 
All  was  picture  as  he  passed." 


THE  UNITARIAN  CHURCH.  261 

Thus,  leaving  Boston,  I  alighted  at  New  York,  then  at 
Cleveland,  then  at  Cincinnati,  then  at  Antioch  College, 
then  at  Pittsburgh,  and  lastly  at  Meadville.  .  .  . 

Leaving  the  Queen  City  at  seven  on  Tuesday  morn- 
ing, we  reached,  at  ten  o'clock,  the  scene  already  made 
famous  through  the  labors  of  Horace  Mann.  Here  we 
found  Dr.  Bellows  ;  Rev.  Nathaniel  Hall,  of  Dorches- 
ter ;  Father  Taylor ;  Mr.  Artemus  Carter,  of  Chicago ; 
Dr.  Hosmer ;  Mr.  Hosea,  of  Cincinnati ;  John  Phillips  ; 
and  other  old  friends  of  the  institution. 

On  Commencement  Day  we  heard  the  parts  of  twenty- 
eight  graduates,  of  whom  a  number  were  young  ladies. 
All  the  parts  were  instinct  with  high  aims  and  earnest 
purpose.  The  soul  of  Horace  Mann  could  be  traced 
through  all.  These  young  men  and  women  contemplated 
life  as  a  scene  of  duty,  where  responsibilities  awaited 
them,  great  laws  were  to  be  obeyed,  and  a  grave  work  was 
to  be  done.  Not  a  tone  or  word  approaching  to  frivolity 
fell  from  their  lips.  The  young  girls,  with  modest  self- 
possession,  sweet  and  hopeful  as  a  summer's  morning, 
gave  a  graceful  variety  to  the  aspect  of  a  Commence- 
ment platform. 

Some  people  fear  the  consequences  of  having  young 
men  and  young  women  taught  together  in  the  same  col- 
lege ;  but  these  fears  are  removed  by  a  short  observa- 
tion of  the  practical  working  of  the  system.  .  .  .  No 
one  at  Antioch  observes  any  bad  consequences  to  arise 
from  this  communion  of  young  men  and  young  women 
in  study.  They  look  at  each  other,  not  in  the  misty 
light  of  fanciful  attraction,  but  in  the  plain  and  com- 
monplace relation  of  fellow-students,  —  reciting  al- 
gebra, Virgil,  and  Horace  in  common,  making  common 
blunders  in  Greek,  and  equally  perplexed  by  conic  sec- 
tions. .  .  . 

I  held  a  kind  of  three  days'  meeting  in  Pittsburgh, 
preaching  on  Priday,  Saturday,  and  Sunday,  to  congrega- 
tions which  filled  the  little  hall  where  service  was  held 


262  DIARY  AND  COERESPONDENCE. 

From  Pittsburgh  I  went,  via  Cleveland,  to  Meadville, 
to  be  present  at  the  Commencement  of  the  theological 
school.  There  also  I  found  Father  Taylor  and  Dr. 
Bellows,  and  in  their  genial  and  glad  society  realized 
again  how  great  a  blessing  there  is  in  Christian  fellow- 
ship. To  the  earnest  young  men  about  to  leave  the 
theological  school  these  brethren  spoke  words  of  coun- 
sel and  good  cheer.  We  found  at  Meadville  the  same 
tone  of  strong,  manly  purpose  as  at  Antioch.  There 
was  no  "  suspense  of  faith  "  perceptible  there. 

TO    E.    E.    HALE. 

William  H,  Channing  once  said  of  Z.,  "What  shall 
be  done  with  an  artist  who  is  not  an  artist  ? "  So 
I  say,  "  What  shall  be  done  with  a  minister  who  is  not 
a  minister  ?  "  My  most  difficult  experiences  are  caused 
by  being  obliged  to  see  and  to  hear  from  so  many 
who  wish  for  work  and  cannot  get  it,  and  for  whom  I 
feel  the  greatest  sympathy.  Our  friend  of  whom  you 
write  is  elegant,  refined,  able  to  criticise  a  novel,  a 
poem,  or  a  picture,  well  acquainted  with  the  best  opera 
music,  but  cannot  succeed  in  preaching  a  Christian  ser- 
mon so  as  to  take  hold  of  human  hearts  and  minds. 

In  like  manner  I  had  a  reproachful  letter  two  days 
since  from  Y.,  inquiring  why  I  did  not  give  a  man  like 
him,  with  his  large  culture  and  thorough  discipline  of 
mind,  some  work  to  do  ?  He  has  ample  culture  and 
discipline,  and  ten  times  the  knowledge  which  the 
young  men  just  out  of  the  divinity  school  have,  but  if 
he  does  not  get  preaching  it  is  evident  that  he  cannot 
preach. 

As  to  the  West :  a  man  who  cannot  succeed  here  is 
sure  not  to  succeed  there.  Such  a  man  as  our  friend 
X.  is  the  very  last  man  for  the  West.  F.  is  worth  ten 
of  him  ;  Augustus  Staples  is  worth  twenty.  Essays 
on  "the  True,  the  Beautiful,  and  the  Good"  are  in  no 
demand  out  of  the  vicinity  of  Boston. 


THE  UNITARIAN  CHURCH.  263 

But  certcainly  there  is  a  place  for  every  one.  This  is 
my  unwavering  conviction.  But  two  things  are  neces- 
sary :  (1)  to  find  the  right  place ;  (2)  to  be  willing  to 
go  to  it,  and  to  work  in  it. 

In  the  earlier  days,  —  at  the  instance  of  Henry 
Ware,  Jr.,  Dr.  Gannett,  and  other  leaders,  —  the  habit 
had  been  formed  among  the  Unitarians  of  holding  what 
they  called  the  "  Autumnal  Convention."  It  was  a 
queer  type  of  the  stateliness  of  their  movement,  as  it 
then  existed,  that  this  title  was  chosen,  where  the 
Friends  would  have  said  "  the  Yearly  Meeting."  ^  Al- 
ready, at  the  "  Autumnal  Convention "  of  1863,  Mr. 
Clarke  had  made  an  address,  which  is  reported  in  the 
"  Monthly  Journal "  for  November  of  that  year.  He 
spoke  of  the  inconsistency  between  our  historic  position 
and  traditions  as  a  denomination  and  our  convictions ; 
'^  our  convictions  have  always  been  progressive,  our 
traditions  tame,  timid,  and  conservative.  .  .  .  Now  the 
denomination  is  awakened.  Dr.  Bellows,  by  his  hercu- 
lean labors  ;  Dr.  Eliot,  our  dear  conservative ;  Hosmer, 
who  left  his  peaceful  home  in  the  Connecticut  Valley 
to  bear  the  private's  gun  on  his  shoulder  through  the 
wearisome  campaigns  ;  Conant,  whose  plaintive  voice, 
calling  out  at  night  on  that  dreadful  battle-field,  'Are 
there  any  wounded  here  ? '  still  rings  in  our  ears ; 
Knapp,  and  other  hearty  laborers,  have  thoroughly 
aroused  it.  See  to  it  that  it  does  not  go  to  sleep  again. 
Now  let  everything  that  can  be  done  to  help  the  human 
race  be  done.     Don't  stop  to  criticise,  but  work.'' 

It  will  be  more  convenient  to  speak  of  his  woi-k  dur- 
ing the  war  in  another  chapter.  Here  it  may  be  said 
that  the  labors  of  such  men,  with  the  Sanitary  Commis- 
sion and  in  other  agencies  connected  with  the  hospital 
and  the  army,  had  a  great  effect  in  bringing  about  in 
the  Unitarian  Church  a  higher  sense  of  its  responsibili- 
^  A  g-ood  essay  might  be  written  on  The  Unitarian  LangTiage. 


264  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

ties  in  the  matter  of  missionary  work.  Under  the  lead 
of  Dr.  Bellows,  at  a  special  meeting  of  the  Unitarian 
Association,  in  December,  1864,  in  Hollis  Street  Church 
in  Boston,  measures  were  taken  which  led  to  the  estab- 
lishment, in  April,  1865,  of  a  ]S"ational  Conference  of 
Unitarian  and  other  Christian  churches.  From  that 
time  this  National  Conference  has  been  the  representa- 
tive body  of  the  Unitarian  Church  of  America. 

In  the  preliminary  arrangements  for  this  conference, 
and  in  the  formation  of  its  constitution,  Mr.  Clarke  was 
a  central  actor.  When,  on  the  4th  of  April,  1865,  the 
delegates  to  a  national  Unitarian  convention  met  in 
the  city  of  New  York,  he  gave  the  first  address  ever  de- 
livered to  the  united  body.  His  appointment  to  give 
this  address  indicated  the  place  which  he  had  gained  in 
the  affection  and  confidence  of  the  denomination.  The 
delegates,  lay  and  clerical,  were  men  of  widely  different 
opinions,  and  the  existence  of  right  and  left  wings  in 
the  body  was  perfectly  well  known.  But  in  Mr.  Clarke 
each  side  had  confidence.  In  most  critical  issues  he 
had  shown  his  readiness  to  give  freedom  to  the  boldest 
inquirer,  and  yet  the  character  of  his  own  writing  had 
given  him  especial  favor,  not  only  among  Orthodox 
Unitarians,  but  among  churches  which  would  hardly 
grant  the  Christianity  of  any  other  Unitarian. 

The  sermon  itself,  which  was  published  at  once,  met 
the  occasion  entirely.  It  was  the  key-note  of  the  har- 
monious convention  which  followed. 

Mr.  Clarke  was  chosen  a  member  of  the  National 
Council  formed  by  this  convention,  and  remained  an 
active  member  of  that  body  as  long  as  he  could  do  so 
under  the  constitution  which  formed  it. 

EXTRACT    FROM    THE    C0N\T:XTI0X    SERMOX. 

Christian  brethren,  members  of  the  National  Uni- 
tarian Convention,  wh}^  have  we  thus  come  together  ? 
Have  we  come  together  as  Unitarians  for  the  pleasure 


THE  UNITARIAN  CHUECH.  265 

of  standing  alone  and  of  being  called  heretics  ?  Are  we 
Unitarians  because  we  like  being  shut  out  from  the 
sympathy  of  the  church  ?  No.  We  often  long  for  the 
larger  communion  of  the  universal  church.  Nor  do  we 
stand  here  as  Unitarians  because  we  cannot  see  how 
much  of  truth  and  of  good  there  is  in  the  churches  from 
which  we  differ. 

We,  too,  desire  to  have  our  share  in  that  deeper  life 
born  of  God,  coming  mostly  through  the  mediation  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  which  changes  duty  into  love,  work 
into  freedom,  and  puts  the  spirit  into  the  heart  whereby 
we  call  God  our  Father.  There  is  no  rapture  of  piety 
in  the  Catholic  or  Protestant  church,  no  mystic  ecstasy, 
no  inspired  insight  in  any  of  the  great  cloud  of  wit- 
nesses belonging  to  the  Christian  family  in  heaven  and 
earth,  but  we  humbly  acknowledge  its  sweetness  and 
strength,  and  long  to  appropriate  it  in  our  own  life. 
We  are  not  Unitarians  because  we  do  not  see  the  good 
and  truth  there  is  in  Orthodoxy. 

But  we  are  Unitarians,  we  are  willing  to  be  called 
heretics,  because  we  see  a  work  to  be  done  which  we 
ought  to  do.  Our  very  existence,  indeed,  does  good  as 
a  standing  protest  against  that  exclusive  spirit  which 
makes  essentials  out  of  matters  of  form  and  matters  of 
opinion. 

This  convention  is  of  Unitarians  ;  and  we  accept  as 
Unitarian  Christians  all  who  claim  that  name.  We  do 
not  make  ourselves  responsible  for  each  other's  opin- 
ions. Probably  we  differ  very  widely  from  each  other 
in  many  points  of  belief.  The  question  is,  Can  we  unite 
together  in  Christian  work  ?  We  can  work  with  Athe- 
ists in  the  Sanitary  Commission,  to  help  the  wounded 
and  dying.  We  can  work  with  Deists  in  the  Temper- 
ance Society,  to  save  our  bretliren  from  ruin  and  de- 
spair. We  can  work  with  slaveholders  and  defenders 
of  slavery  in  the  hospitals,  with  Eoman  Catholics  in 
the  Freedman's  Aid  Society,  with   Calvinists   on   the 


266  DIAEY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

school-committee.  We  do  not  compromise  our  faith  in 
Theism,  Christianity,  Anti-slavery,  Protestantism,  or 
Unitarianism  by  so  doing.  And  so  if  some  of  our 
brethren  here  are  Naturalists  ;  if  they  disbelieve  mir- 
acles ;  if  they  carry  their  criticism  on  the  New  Testa- 
ment farther  than  I  do ;  so  long  as  we  have  work  to  do 
in  which  we  agree,  we  can  cordially  unite.  So  long  as 
they  wish  to  bring  men  to  God  by  the  teaching  and  life 
of  Jesus,  let  us  be  glad  to  cooperate,  and  not  be  afraid 
of  compromising  ourselves  thereby. 

The  lines  which  unite  Christians  are  not  the  theolo- 
gical parallels  of  latitude,  but  the  isothermal  lines  of 
faith.  I  often  find  myself  in  the  same  religious  climate, 
in  the  same  isothermal  line,  with  men  from  whom  I 
differ  very  widely  in  my  religious  creed. 

And  therefore  I  hope  that,  though  we  meet  as  a  Uni- 
tarian convention  this  year,  we  shall  meet  next  year  on 
a  much  broader  basis,  which  shall  include  all  liberal 
Christian  churches  who  may  desire  to  cooperate  with 
us.  We  and  they  can  be  what  we  choose  at  home,  have 
our  own  names,  creeds,  and  methods,  but  can  meet  once 
a  year  in  a  national  convention,  with  all  who  believe  in 
a  broad  cooperation  for  Christian  work. 

The  church  is  the  body  of  Christ.  It  is  an  organiza- 
tion through  which  the  spirit  of  Christ  can  work.  If, 
hitherto,  it  has  preached  him  in  the  pulpit,  rather  than 
gone  with  him  to  seek  and  save  the  lost;  if  it  has 
taught  doctrines  about  him,  rather  than  carried  him  to  a 
world  lying  in  wickedness  ;  if  it  has  rather  called  on  men 
to  "  come  to  Jesus  "  than  taken  Jesus  to  find  and  help 
them  where  they  are,  the  time  has  come,  we  think,  for  a 
change.  We  wish  to  take  part  in  the  great  and  opening 
civilization  of  the  new  day  and  hour.  We  wish  to  do 
something  for  such  a  Christianity  as  the  world  has  never 
yet  seen,  a  Christianity  which  shall  fill  all  life  with  the 
sense  of  God's  presence ;  which  shall  cast  both  Death 
and  Hell  into  a  lake  of  fire  ;  which  shall  give  us  a  new 


THE  UNITARIAN  CHURCH.  267 

heaven  and  a  new  earth,  wherein  dwelleth  righteous- 
ness. 

If  we  are  to  do  our  work,  we  must  have  not  less  faith, 
and  prayer,  and  piety  than  others,  but  more.  Unitarians 
ought  to  live  nearer  to  God  than  any  others.  Our  faith 
should  lead  us  to  live  in  the  spirit  and  walk  in  the 
spirit.  Above  all  technical  religion,  mere  cant  of  piety, 
we  ought  to  live  from  God  and  to  God  all  the  day.  Our 
views  of  God  and  man  should  fill  us  with  a  love  which 
prays  without  ceasing,  which  in  everything  gives  thanks, 
which  does  all  to  the  glory  of  God,  which  feels  his  pres- 
ence hour  by  hour,  moment  by  moment,  and  says  se- 
cretly and  sweetly,  "  Abba,  Father,"  all  day  long. 

We  shall  have  men  of  this  faith  when  we  begin  to  do 
more  work.  Faith  leads  to  work,  work  also  leads  to 
faith.  He  who  does  a  great  Christian  work  casts  him- 
self on  God  for  strength.  Our  working  men  will  also 
be  praying  men. 

In  1877,  at  the  request  of  the  American  Unitarian 
Association,  Mr.  Clarke  gave,  in  Music  Hall,  on  succes- 
sive Sunday  evenings,  a  course  of  six  lectures,  which 
were  afterwards  published  in  book  form  and  called 
"  Essentials  and  Non-Essentials  in  Religion." 


CHAPTEE  XV. 

THE    WAR. 

As  soon  as  tlie  war  came,  every  man's  plans  gave 
way  to  his  duties  in  the  national  cause.  Men  who  had 
not  known  each  other  by  sight  found  themselves  work- 
ing side  by  side  ;  and  even  men  who  had  distrusted 
each  other  found  they  were  close  friends.  In  the  new 
life  of  the  hour,  Mr.  Clarke's  intimacy  with  Governor 
Andrew  and  the  interest  which  he  took  in  the  Sanitary 
Commission  brought  him  personally  into  relations  with 
soldiers  and  with  the  arrangements  made  for  caring  for 
them  in  the  field. 

When  the  life  of  Governor  Andrew  is  written,  and 
let  us  hope  it  will  be  written  soon,  we  shall  have  as 
fine  an  instance  as  our  history  can  show  of  the  way  in 
which  a  pure  idealist  comes  to  the  front  in  a  republic 
like  ours,  and  takes  the  lead  if  he  be  fit  for  it,  even  if 
he  be  quite  indifferent  to  the  methods  of  partisans  and 
indeed  ignorant  of  them.  His  life-long  friend,  Mr. 
Chandler,  has  left  an  amusing  account  of  their  experi- 
ences as  poor  young  men,  when  they  both  first  arrived 
in  Boston.  The  landlady,  in  Howard  Street,  to  whom 
they  applied  for  lodgings,  gave  each  of  them  the  choice 
of  a  small  attic,  without  a  window,  which  had  one  bed, 
or  of  half  a  double-bedded  attic  which  had  a  window. 
For  some  reason  Andrew  had  the  first  choice,  and  he 
preferred  darkness  with  solitude.  Starting  from  cir- 
cumstances as  simple  as  this  story  suggests,  with  no 
forces  but  such  as  personal  character  and  ability  gave, 
Andrew  found  himself,  in  1860,  Governor  of  Massachu- 


THE   WAR.  269 

setts.  Throughout  his  life  in  Boston  he  lived  on  the 
most  intimate  terms  with  Mr.  Clarke.  He  joined  the 
Church  of  the  Disciples  in  the  same  year  in  which  it 
was  founded.  When  the  secession  from  that  church, 
which  has  been  referred  to,  took  place,  he  announced 
that  he  was  a  "  stay-inner,"  and  not  a  "  come-outer." 
More  than  once,  when  Mr.  Clarke  was  not  present  on 
Sunday,  he  conducted  the  religious  services.  He  also 
taught  a  class  in  the  Sunday-school,  and  for  a  time 
was  its  superintendent. 

Mr.  Andrew's  name  was  so  thoroughly  identified  with 
all  the  philanthropies  that  it  was  freely  said  when  he 
was  elected  governor  that  he  would  put  an  end  to  the 
militia  system  of  Massachusetts.  But  he  was  the  man, 
as  it  proved,  who  found  it  his  duty  and  his  pride  to  en- 
list the  largest  army  Massachusetts  ever  raised,  and  to 
maintain  it  in  the  highest  efficiency.  Once  and  again, 
Mr.  Clarke  visited  Washington  with  Governor  Andrew, 
having  indeed  duties  of  his  own  in  the  work  of  the 
Sanitary  Commission  and  of  the  hospitals.  As  secre- 
tary of  the  Unitarian  Association,  he  had  the  oversight 
of  the  publication  of  some  army  tracts,  which  got  the 
name  of  the  "  White  Tracts,"  and  were  said  to  be 
warmly  welcomed  by  the  soldiers. 

At  the  very  beginning  of  the  war.  Dr.  Bellows 
founded  the  Sanitary  Commission,  with  reference  to  its 
use  in  keeping  up  the  interest  of  the  countr}^  in  the 
army,  as  well  as  for  the  service  which  it  would  render 
in  hospitals  and  in  the  field.  Mr.  Clarke  took  his  share 
of  work  in  this  organization,  and  was,  from  the  first, 
an  officer  in  the  Massachusetts  branch.  But  in  truth, 
every  such  church  as  his  was  in  itself  an  organization, 
ready  made,  for  assisting  in  the  duties  of  the  war, 
whether  recruiting  for  the  army,  or  the  care  of  soldiers, 
or  the  instruction  of  freedmen,  or  their  welcome  in  New 
England,  or,  when  things  came  nearer  to  a  close,  the 
care  of  refugees,  and  the  introduction  of  some  system 
of  education  at  the  South. 


270  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

A  number  of  the  young  men  of  the  Church  of  the 
Disciples  served  in  the  army.  Of  these,  some  whose 
names  are  still  fondly  remembered  died  on  the  field  of 
battle.  Young  women  from  the  church  were  in  hos- 
pital service,  and  men  and  women  both  were  personally 
engaged  in  the  instruction  of  the  freedmen,  for  which 
those  at  home  were  providing  the  supplies.  I  do  not 
know  that  Dr.  Clarke  was  ever  under  lire  in  the  war, 
but  the  correspondence  for  the  four  years  is  full  of  de- 
tails which  show  how  close  was  his  personal  interest  in 
all  its  movement. 

Up  to  the  last  minute,  even  those  who  had  been 
watching  for  years  the  storm-cloud  gather,  and  had 
uttered  their  warnings  to  the  blinded  nation,  still  hoped 
that  the  doom  might  be  averted.  Toward  the  end  of 
1860,  after  the  election  of  Lincoln,  in  a  pamphlet  called 
"Secession,  Concession,  or  Self-possession,  — Which  ?  " 
Mr.  Clarke  says  :  — 

"The  Sibyl  has  visited  our  country  and  our  rulers 
many  times  during  the  last  twenty  years.  She  came  at 
the  time  of  the  annexation  of  Texas,  and  offered  us 
prosperity,  union,  and  freedom.  But  the  price  which 
she  asked  we  thought  high  ;  we  could  not  afford  to  pay 
it.  It  was  a  courageous  and  firm  resistance  to  the  de- 
mands of  the  slave  power. 

"  In  1850,  the  Sibyl  came  again,  and  offered  us  some- 
what less  at  the  same  price.  If  we  were  then  coura- 
geous enough  to  exclude  slavery  by  law  from  the  Terri- 
tories, we  should  encounter  difficulty.  The  slave  power 
would  resist  and  threaten,  but  there  would  be  no  dis- 
union. But  again  we  thought  the  price  too  high,  and 
we  did  not  pay  it.  We  had  another  offer  in  1856, 
which  we  declined.  And  now,  in  1860,  the  Sibyl  comes 
again.  She  offers  us  far  less  than  at  first.  We  can  still 
have  freedom  and  national  prosperity,  but  not  union. 
Some  States  have  decided  to  leave  us  ;  but  they  may 
leave  us  peacefully,  and  many  of  the  slave  States  may 


THE  WAR.  271 

remain  with  us.  But,  if  we  are  afraid  to  pay  the  price, 
the  Sibyl  will  come  again  and  again,  offering  less  each 
time  ;  and  we  shall  have  at  last  to  come  to  her  terms  : 
for  the  name  of  the  Sibyl  is  Opportunity." 

The  next  spring  the  storm-cloud  broke. 

The  following  notes  from  the  diary  illustrate  the  di- 
rection which  events  gave  to  his  daily  life  :  — 

April  13,  1861.     Fort  Sumter  surrendered. 

April  15.  President's  proclamation  calling  out  sev- 
enty-five thousand  men. 

April  16.  3d,  4tli,  and  6th  regiments  meet  on  Boston 
Common. 

April  19.  Massachusetts  men  attacked  and  killed  in 
Baltimore  by  the  mob.  Spent  two  or  three  hours  in 
the  governor's  room  at  the  State  House. 

In  giving  an  account  of  this  19th  of  April,  Mr.  Clarke 
said :  "  I  was  in  Governor  Andrew's  room  in  the  State 
House  when  the  news  was  coming,  by  telegraph,  of  the 
attacks  on  our  troops  in  Baltimore.  While  I  was  tliere, 
Edward  Everett  came  in.  He  had  been  nominated  for 
vice-president  by  the  Union  Whigs,  a  party  opposed  to 
the  Republicans  who  nominated  Lincoln.  Forgetting 
party  hostility,  he  said  :  *  I  have  come.  Governor  An- 
drew, to  offer  you  my  services  in  any  way  in  wliich 
you  can  make  use  of  them.'  Another  friend,  a  class- 
mate of  mine,  who  was  not  a  Kepublican,  came  in  and 
handed  his  check  for  ten  thousand  dollars  to  Governor 
Andrew,  to  be  used  as  he  might  think  best  fur  the 
common  good." 

FROM    A    SERMOX    PREACHED    APRIL    21,    THE    NEXT    SUN- 
DAY   AFTER    THE    ATTACK    OX    FoRT    SIMTIIK. 

If  the  true  position  of  a  nation  is  its  highest  moral 
attitude,  then  we  may  say  that  these  free  States  were 
never  in  a  better  condition  than  they  are  to-day.     The 


272  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

end  is  not  yet ;  no,  and  though  they  take  Washington, 
take  our  President  prisoner,  seize  the  archives,  and  in- 
stall themselves  in  the  Cayjitol,  that  is  not  the  end.  So 
long  as  the  magnificent  spirit  which  actuates  the  whole 
North  to-day  continues,  the  spirit  of  devoted  patriotism, 
of  perfect  unanimity  of  sentiment,  of  generous  self- 
sacrifice,  of  calm,  quiet  courage,  which  does  not  boast 
at  the  beginning  nor  flinch  at  the  end,  so  long  the 
nation  is  safe.  .  .  . 

This  is  a  sort  of  Pentecostal  Day,  in  which  the  whole 
multitude  are  of  one  heart  and  one  soul ;  nor  says  any 
one  that  aught  that  he  possesses  is  his  own,  but  we  have 
all  things  in  common.  .  .  . 

For  the  sake  of  national  prosperity,  for  the  sake  of 
outward  union,  for  the  sake  of  a  mere  mercantile  peace, 
we  have  here  at  the  North  been  conniving  for  years  at 
a  system  of  despotism  more  cruel  than  exists  elsewhere 
on  the  face  of  the  earth. 

Now  we  are  punished  in  just  those  three  points.  Our 
prosperity  has  received  a  terrible  check,  our  Union  is 
dissolved,  and  our  peace  has  terminated  in  what  threat- 
ens to  be  an  awful  war.  .  .  . 

Let  us  stand  by  each  other  now  in  these  dark  hours, 
trusting  in  God's  eternal  justice  and  truth.  He  that  is 
for  us  is  more  than  they  that  be  against  us. 

During  the  dark  hours  of  the  Civil  War,  all  Mr. 
Clarke's  faith  and  hope  were  needed ;  but  he  had  fore- 
seen that  defeats  during  the  first  period  of  the  war  were 
to  be  expected  ;  and  his  confidence,  born  of  trust  in  the 
divine  Providence,  never  failed.  A  friend  told,  twenty 
years  later,  how  he  had  met  Mr.  Clarke  the  day  after 
the  battle  of  Bull  Eun,  and  how,  even  on  that  black 
day,  when  every  one  else  was  disheartened,  his  serenity 
was  unshaken. 

Some  of  his  parishioners  noticed  that  whenever  any- 


THE   WAR.  273 

thing  very  discouraging  happened,  he  was  sure  the  next 
Sunday  to  rise  up  in  the  pulpit,  looking  full  of  hope 
and  courage,  and  when  the  time  came  for  the  lirst 
hymn,  he  would  say  :  "  We  will  sing  the  hymn  begin- 
ning, 

*  Give  to  the  winds  thy  fears  ! 
Hope,  and  be  undismayed  !  '" 

They  learned  to  watch  for  the  accustomed  words  ;  and 
one  of  them  said,  "  We  lived  on  that  hymn  all  through 
the  war  ;  everybody  in  the  church  learned  it  by  heart." 

FROM    HIS    DIARY. 

June  2,  1861.  Afternoon  to  Brook  Farm,  to  ^'  Camp 
Andrew  "  to  preach. 

June  9.     Preach  at  Camp  Andrew  in  afternoon. 

June  16.  To  Brook  Farm,  preached  fourth  time,  — 
text,  "Be  not  weary." 

[He  owned  Brook  Farm,  and  had  given  the  use  of  it 
for  the  camp  of  the  Massachusetts  Second,  while  it  was 
recruiting  and  preparing  for  the  front.] 

July  8.  Gordon's  regiment  left  Brook  Farm.  Went 
up  there  before  breakfast. 

July  22.     News  of  defeat  at  Bull  Run. 

July  23.     State  House  ;  General  Schouler. 

Sept.  26.  National  fast.  Preached  on  "  Slavery  and 
the  Union."     Church  very  full. 

Oct.  1.  Delegate  to  Republican  Convention  at 
Worcester.  I  presented  two  emancipation  resolutions. 
Both  set  aside. 

Oct.  21.  Battle  of  Edwards'  Ferry  [Ball's  Bluff]. 
Took  telegram  to  Dr.  Holmes  about  his  son. 

Oct.  29.  Funeral  of  William  Lowell  Putnam.^  I 
spoke. 

1  \Vho  had  died  in  the  battle  of  Ball's  Bluff. 


274  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 


FROM     HIS     ADDRESS     AT     THE     FUNERAL     OF     WILLIAM 
LOWELL    PUTNAM. 

In  the  fatal  battle  a  week  ago,  Putnam  fell  while  en- 
deavoring to  save  a  wounded  companion,  —  fell,  soiled 
with  no  ignoble  dust  —  "  no7i  indecoro  i^ulvere  sordi- 
ditm.^''  Brought  to  the  hospital-tent,  he  said  to  the  sur- 
geon, who  came  to  dress  his  wound,  "  Go  to  some  one 
else,  to  whom  you  can  do  more  good ;  you  cannot  save 
me,"  —  like  Philip  Sydney,  giving  the  water  to  the  sol- 
diers who  needed  it  more  than  himself.  And  still  more 
striking,  as  showing  his  earnest  conscientiousness,  is 
the  fact  that  he  refused  to  allow  Sturgis  to  remove  him, 
saying  :  "  It  is  your  duty  to  leave  me.  It  is  your  duty 
to  go  to  your  own  men,  and  leave  me  here."  And  his 
friend  was  obliged  to  carry  him  away  in  spite  of  this 
protest. 

How  hard  that  these  precious  lives  should  be  thus 
wasted,  apparently  for  naught,  through  the  ignorance 
or  the  carelessness  of  those  whose  duty  it  was  to  make 
due  preparation,  before  sending  them  to  the  field  !  How 
can  we  bear  it  ? 

We  could  not  bear  it,  unless  we  believed  in  God. 
But  it  is  not  any  blind  chance,  nor  yet  any  human  folly, 
which  controls  these  events.  All  is  as  God  wills,  who 
knows  what  the  world  needs,  and  what  we  need,  better 
than  we  can  know  it.  And  the  death  of  Christ  has 
taught  us  that  it  is  God's  great  law  that  the  best  shall 
be  sacrificed  to  save  the  worst,  the  innocent  suffering 
for  the  good  of  the  guilty.  This  is  the  law,  ordained 
before  the  earth  was  made  ;  and  every  pure  soul  sacri- 
ficed in  a  struggle  with  evil  is  another  "  lamb  slain  from 
the  foundation  of  the  world." 

And  do  we  not  see,  in  these  great  sacrifices,  that  the 
heroism  itself  is  already  a  great  gain  ?  Is  it  not  some- 
thing to  know  that  we  do  not  belong  to  a  degenerate 
race  ?     Is  it  not  a  great  blessing  to  know  that  we  also, 


THE    WAR.  275 

and  our  sons,  are  still  as  capable  as  our  fathers  were  of 
great  and  noble  sacrifices,  —  that  ^Massachusetts  still 
produces  heroes,  —  that  these  boys  of  yours,  trained 
perhaps  in  luxury,  can,  at  the  call  of  their  country,  die 
cheerfully  for  their  land  ? 

FKOM    Ills    DIARY. 

1861.  Nov.  12.  Depart  for  Washington.  Meet  Gov 
ernor  and  Mrs.  Andrew  at  New  Haven. 

Nov.  13.  To  Philadelphia  with  Governor  Andrew, 
Colonel  Howe,  and  Colonel  Kitehie. 

Nov.  15.  Visit  the  Capitol  witli  William  H.  Clian- 
ning. 

Nov.  IG.     Call  upon  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Nov,  17.  Call  upon  President  Lincoln  ;  hear  William 
Channing  preach;  walk  to  Fort  Albany  to  preach  to  the 
Sixteenth  Massachusetts. 

Nov.  18.  To  see  review  at  Upton's  Hill.  See  dis- 
tant skirmish. 

Nov.  19.     Brigade  review. 

Nov.  20.     Grand  review,  —  53,000  men. 

Nov.  24.  [At  home.]  Preach  sermon  on  "Washing- 
ton in  November."     Church  crowded. 

These  entries  are  intermixed  with  "  l^)il)le-class,'-  "  Vis- 
ited seven  schools,''  '' Baptized  William  and  Helen,'' 
"Ministers'  meeting,"  and  other  alTairs  which  would 
seem  to  be  of  peaceful  life. 

At  this  time  ]\[r.  Clarke  was  general  secretary  of  tlie 
American  Unitarian  Association.  In  the  **  Monthly 
Journal "  of  December,  18G1,  he  gives  the  ft)llo\ving 
account  of  his  ten  days'  stay  in  Washington  during  the 
previous  moiitli. 

!My  last  visit  of  any  length  to  Wasliington  was  in 
1851,  —  ten  years  ago.  In  those  days  it  was  a  city 
to  weep  over.     It  was  a  city  of  politicians  and  place- 


276  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

linnters.  The  influence  of  the  Government  and  of 
office-holders  was  so  preponderant  that  all  other  powers 
gave  way  before  the  power  of  place.  .  .  . 

One  thing,  however,  was  essential  to  all  aspirants  for 
office :  they  must  believe  in  slavery,  or,  at  least,  must 
believe  in  giving  slavery  all  it  asked.  The  bitter  mock- 
ery then  known  as  the  "  Compromises  of  1850 "  had 
been  passed.  The  Fugitive  Slave  Law  of  Senator  Ma- 
son had  been  universally  accepted  as  constitutional  and 
right.  Great  men  of  all  parties  had  agreed  that  anti- 
slavery  agitation  was  ended.  The  conscience,  reason, 
and  heart  of  man  were  to  be  forever  silenced  on  this 
subject. 

I  recollect  going  into  the  Senate  chamber  one  day, 
and  sitting  behind  the  chair  of  Mr.  Clay.  It  was  his 
last  session  in  Congress.  He  spoke,  that  morning,  with 
great  contempt  of  the  "  Free-Soil "  party  ;  and  said, 
"  We  have  put  them  down,  down,  down,  —  so  low  down, 
that  they  will  never  rise  again."  Yet  now  the  princi- 
ples of  this  party,  so  low  in  1851,  have,  in  1861,  taken 
possession  of  the  White  House  and  the  Capitol. 

In  those  days,  to  be  a  Free-Soiler  was  equivalent  to 
exclusion  from  the  common  courtesies  and  privileges  of 
Washington.  All  public  offices,  all  places  in  the  Cab- 
inet, all  important  committees  in  the  Senate  and  House 
were  held  by  their  opponents.  At  the  house  of  Gama- 
liel Bailey,  editor  of  the  "  National  Era,"  a  little  knot  of 
Free-Soilers  would  collect  every  evening.  There  I  used 
to  see  Giddings,  Seward,  Chase,  Hale,  Julian,  Horace 
Mann,  and  a  few  others.  Meantime  the  great  East 
Eoom  of  the  White  House  was  nightly  crowded  with 
ambassadors,  heads  of  departments,  military  and  naval 
officers,  and  brilliant  women ;  so  crowded  that  it  was 
difficult  to  see  any  one  at  a  distance  from  you,  except 
two  men  who  toAvered  head  and  shoulders  above  all  the 
rest,  and  were  visible  from  any  part  of  the  room, — 
General  Scott  and  Samuel  Houston.  .  .  . 


THE   WAR.  277 

Such  was  Washington  in  1851.  How  is  it  now,  in 
1861? 

Ton  years  have  passed,  and  what  a  change  !  The 
crowds  who  then  thronged  Presidential  levees  are  either 
fled,  or  "  gone  to  salute  the  rising  morn."  That  "  ris- 
ing morn"  is  the  same  Free-Soil  dynasty  which,  ten 
years  ago,  met  in  Dr.  Bailey's  little  upper  chamber,  — 
that  same  party  which  I  heard  Henry  Clay  then  declare 
to  be  "  put  down,  down,  down  for  ever  and  ever  !  "  The 
two  foremost  men  in  the  Cabinet  of  Mr.  Lincoln  are 
two  who  used  to  meet  in  that  room,  Seward  and  Chase ; 
another,  Henry  Wilson,  is  chairman  of  one  of  the  most 
important  committees.  Everything  has  passed  into  the 
hands  of  the  party  which  was  then  dowx,  —  White 
House,  Capitol,  Departments,  Army,  Navy,  Treasury, 
—  everything  but  the  Supreme  Court,  and  that  sits 
helpless  for  good,  powerless  for  evil.  Young  politician, 
believe  in  ideas  ! 

Blinded  by  some  divine  Nemesis,  the  slave  power, 
which  had  all  in  its  hands,  flung  all  away.  Dividing 
its  party  at  Charleston,  it  gave  the  llepublicans  the 
President ;  by  seceding  from  Congress,  it  gave  them  a 
majority  in  both  Houses  ;  by  making  war  on  the  Union, 
it  gave  them  the  support  of  a  united  North ;  holding 
the  sword  and  purse  of  the  Union,  the  army  and  navy, 
the  Senate  and  House,  it  threw  them  all  away.  Where 
are  the  voices  once  so  loud  and  arrogant,  so  domineer- 
ing and  overbearing  ?  Departed  all,  and  departed  for- 
ever !  New  men,  new  scenes.  The  new  era  has  taken 
to  itself  new  halls  in  the  extended  Capitol.  But  I 
willingly  lingered  in  the  scene  of  those  great  debates, 
which  the  pen  of  History  shall  make  immortal.  I  stood 
in  the  place  where  was  the  desk  of  John  Quincy  Adams, 
and  thought  of  the  time  when  the  brave  old  hero  stood 
alone  for  three  days,  attacked  by  all  the  Southern  bul- 
lies and  Northern  dough-faces,  —  he  alone  against  all, 
and  conquering  them  all.  .  .  . 


278  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDEXCE. 

The  whole  aspect  of  the  city  is  changed.  It  is  like 
a  city  of  Europe,  —  like  Berlin,  or  Vienna,  or  St. 
Petersburg,  —  but  with  a  difference.  For  this  of  ours 
is  not  a  mere  standing  army,  to  be  wielded  blindly  in 
the  interests  of  despotism,  but  an  intelligent  army  of 
freemen,  come  to  protect  liberty  and  law.  It  is  the  na- 
tion itself  which  has  taken  up  arms,  and  come  to  Wash- 
ington to  defend  its  own  life  and  the  ideas  of  the 
fathers.  It  has  come  to  defend  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence, and  the  Constitution,  laws,  and  traditions 
of  the  land. 

Therefore  the  most  interesting  thing  in  and  about 
Washington  is  the  army,  considered  as  a  collection  of 
individuals.  I  enjoyed  talking  with  the  soldiers  in  the 
camps,  in  the  hospitals,  and  in  Washington.  I  talked 
with  many  of  them  from  all  parts  of  the  land,  —  Michi- 
gan, Minnesota,  Kentucky,  Pennsylvania,  Massachu- 
setts, Vermont,  New  York ;  Irish  also,  and  Germans ; 
and  I  never  talked  with  men  who  seemed  animated  by 
a  more  earnest  purpose  ;  never  with  men  more  serious, 
manly,  and  unpretending.  Eogues  and  villains  there 
doubtless  are  in  this,  as  in  all  armies ;  but  they  are 
a  small  minority.  The  mails  go  from  every  camp, 
weighed  down  with  letters  for  friends  at  home.  From 
Port  Royal,  the  other  day,  the  steamer  brought  fifteen 
thousand  letters,  an  average  of  one  for  every  man. 

In  Fort  Runion,  which  is  the  tete  du  pont  of  the  Long 
Bridge,  there  is  a  company  of  Marblehead  men  in  gar- 
rison. Nearly  every  one  of  them  has  had  fever  and 
ague,  for  the  fort  is  on  the  edge  of  a  swamp.  But  the 
men  said  they  were  very  willing  to  stay  there,  since 
any  other  company  would  have  to  be  seasoned  as  they 
had  been,  and  they  were  already  acclimated.  There 
was  true  heroism  in  this.  .  .  . 

Saturday,  November  16,  .     Went  in  a  carriage 

with  three  friends  (one  of  them  being  W.  H.  Channing, 
and  another  the  Boston  correspondent  of  the  "  New 


THE  WAR.  279 

York  Tribune")  over  the  Long  Bridge,  on  a  visit  to 
some  of  the  camps  in  Virginia.  Our  passes,  good  for 
ten  days,  and  admitting  us  everywhere  within  the  lines, 
had  been  procured  from  General  ^IcClellan.  We  first 
went  to  Fort  Runion  and  Fort  Albany,  both  garrisoned 
by  the  Massaciiusetts  Fourteenth,  and  under  the  com- 
mand of  Col,  William  1).  ^reene.  Colonel  (Jreene  is  a 
graduate  of  West  Point,  and  has  been  successively  in 
the  Florida  War,  as  United  States  officer  of  regulars ; 
student  of  theology  in  the  Baptist  Seminary,  Newton  ; 
Unitarian  minister  at  South  Brooklield,  ]\[iiss. ;  and 
author  of  various  profound  metaphysical,  theological, 
and  politico-economical  works.  From  Fort  Albany  one 
overlooks  the  Potomac  and  a  wide  extent  of  country. 
It  is  a  powerful  fortification,  defended  by  high  earth- 
works, deep  ditches,  a  tangled  abattis  of  limbs  of  trees, 
and  heavy  pieces  of  artillery.  The  colonel  summoned 
his  regiment  together,  and  asked  them  to  sing  some  of 
their  songs  and  hymns  for  the  party  ;  introducing  to 
them  more  particularly  j\Irs.  John  A.  Andrew.  Among 
these  songs  the  most  conspicuous  was  the  famous  Jolin 
Brown  song,  — 

"John  Brown's  body  lies  a-moulderiii{;  in  the  grave  ; 
His  soul  R'oes  marching'  on. 

Glory,  glory,  hallelujah  !  " 

Several  times  afterward  did  we  hear  this  song  sounding 
among  the  woods  of  Virginia;  and  surely  it  seemed 
tme  in  the  deepest  sense.  John  Brown's  soul  is  marcli- 
ing  on  !  For  what  is  the  soul  of  John  lirown  but  his 
unconquerable  hatred  of  slavery,  and  his  fervent  (h'sirc 
of  seeing  it  abolished  ?  And  is  not  that  desire  and 
feeling  marching  on  ?  Is  not  slavery  recognized  more 
and  more  as  the  cause  of  tlie  war,  the  deadly  foe  of  the 
Union,  the  poison  in  our  cu]),  the  enemy  of  true  de- 
mocracy and  true  Christianity,  and  something  which 
must  be  destroyed,  if  the  life  of  the  nation  is  to  be 
saved  ?  .  .  . 


280  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

To  say  this,  or  something  equivalent,  to  IMassaehu- 
setts  men,  on  the  banks  of  the  Potomac,  in  Old  Vir- 
ginia, was  accounted  by  me  a  privilege.  The  colonel 
asked  us  to  address  the  men,  and  we  did ;  but  at  this 
time  we  spoke  of  the  pride  which  Massachusetts  took 
in  her  soldiers,  —  of  the  credit  they  brought  to  the  old 
State  by  their  discipline  in  camp  and  courage  in  the 
field.  We  told  them  of  the  women  at  home,  who  could 
be  happy  only  when  doing  something  for  their  soldiers ; 
and  of  the  heroic  deaths  of  the  brave  officers,  Massachu- 
setts boys,  who,  amid  their  own  sufferings,  thought  only 
of  the  welfare  of  their  men,  and  of  their  heroism.  A 
lady  of  the  party  said  a  few  words,  suited  to  the  scene 
and  hour.  .  .  . 

During  the  evening.  Governor  Andrew  took  me,  with 
two  other  gentlemen,  to  call  on  the  President.  The 
porter  at  the  White  House  told  us  that  he  had  gone 
out,  but  would  soon  be  back.  So  we  went  on  through 
gallery  and  corridor,  blue  room,  council  room,  and  par- 
lor, —  all  lighted,  and  all  empty.  The  doors  stood 
open;  but  not  a  soul  could  be  anywhere  seen.  The 
only  signs  of  occupancy  which  we  found  were  two  pairs 
of  little  shoes  standing  outside  a  door,  indicative  of 
children  sleeping  quietly  within.  Happy  children,  who 
can  play  all  day  in  a  palace  as  in  a  cottage,  and  sleep 
all  night  undisturbed  by  the  uneasy  cares  which  deny 
rest  to  kings  and  presidents  ! 

Selecting  the  room  which  best  suited  us,  we  talked 
together  until  the  President,  returning  home  and  hear- 
ing our  voices,  came  Avhere  we  were.  What  is  the  im- 
pression which  his  appearance,  manner,  and  conversa- 
tion make  on  one  ?  This  :  of  an  unassuming  country 
gentleman,  modest  but  self-possessed,  with  sagacity  and 
full  powers  of  observation,  but  without  the  least  touch 
of  political  manoeuvring.  Mr.  Lincoln  is  no  politician ; 
does  not  pretend  to  be  a  great  and  accomplished  states- 
man ;    but    is    an    honest,   candid,    modest,    sagacious 


THE  WAR.  281 

American  citizen,  who  means  to  do  his  duty  as  well 
as  he  can.  .  .  . 

Sunday,  November  17.  In  the  afternoon  of  this 
sunny  Sunday,  I  walked  over  the  Long  Bridge  to  hold  a 
religious  service  with  the  Massachusetts  Fourteenth,  in 
Fort  Albany,  in  compliance  with  an  invitation  brought 
to  me  on  the  previous  evening  by  three  of  the  soldiers. 
It  so  happened  that  I  stood  to  address  the  troops  with 
my  face  to  the  Potomac  and  the  city  of  Washington ; 
and  the  soft  lights  of  evening  gathered  over  the  scene 
as  the  service  went  on,  and  the  voices  of  the  soldiers 
arose  in  song,  while  "  the  sounding  aisles  of  the  dim 
woods  "  of  Virginia  rang  to  the  anthem  of  the  free  sol- 
diers of  Massachusetts.  It  was  a  thrilling  scene,  and 
one  long  to  be  remembered  by  me. 

After  preaching,  parade-drill ;  and  after  this  came 
what  the  colonel  called  the  "  cultus  of  the  flag." 

The  soldiers  were  drawn  up  around  the  flag-staff :  the 
band  saluted  the  flag  ;  the  men  presented  arms.  Then 
the  flag  was  lowered  by  four  men,  and  carefully  folded 
into  a  triangular  form  ;  then  carried  by  one  of  them 
in  his  arms  reverently,  while  the  others  Avalked  be- 
side him  ;  and  the  soldiers  formed  an  escort  for  it  to 
headquarters,  where  it  was  put  away  for  the  night  on 
a  shelf.  .  .  . 

The  result  of  this  visit  to  Washington  was,  on  the 
whole,  gratifying.  Far  more  gratifying  was  this  visit 
in  1861,  in  time  of  war,  than  the  other  in  1851,  in  time 
of  peace.  Then  all  was  outward  prosperity  ;  but  in- 
wardly all  was  corruption.  Now  outwardly  everything 
denotes  disaster  and  calamity  ;  but  inwardly  there  is  a 
brave  and  generous  purpose.  Soldiers  go  to  the  war 
impelled  by  this  motive  ;  their  friends  at  home  feel  its 
influence.  .  .  . 

It  is  very  sad  to  go  throngli  the  hospitals,  and  see 
the  young  men  maimed  for  life;  unable  any  more  to 
take  part  in  youthful  sports  ;  never  again  to  rieh*  or  run 


282  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

or  swim  or  skate  or  dance.  They  go  out  with  a  youth- 
ful beauty  which  touches  all  hearts  ;  they  come  home 
disfigured  and  deformed.  What  does  not  the  nation 
owe  to  those  who  incur  these  risks  for  its  sake  ? 

Nevertheless,  w^ar  is  like  a  fever,  in  which  nature 
makes  an  effort  to  throw  off  some  deep-seated  evil 
worse  than  the  fever.  Our  nation  was  gradually  be- 
coming corrupt.  The  poison  of  slavery  was  penetrating 
every  part  of  the  social  system.  It  corrupted  the  great 
political  parties,  it  polluted  the  church,  it  demoralized 
trade,  it  debased  society. 

Is  it  not  a  grand  thing  to  see  all  this  flood  of  evil 
checked,  even  by  the  storm  of  war  ? 

Thus  may  Washington,  redeemed  and  purified,  yet 
become  our  holy  city  !  God  grant  that  the  immense 
woes  and  wrongs  of  war  may  at  least  produce  this 
happy  result,  a  community  saved  from  the  corruptions 
of  prosperity  and  peace. 

FROM    SOME    OF    HIS    SERMONS    OF    THIS    PERIOD. 

It  is,  perhaps,  the  highest  kind  of  courage,  this  of 
standing  at  our  post,  no  matter  whether  we  seem  to  suc- 
ceed or  to  fail.  For  this,  we  dwell  so  often,  with  tear- 
ful eyes,  on  the  story  of  the  unequal  fight,  when  young 
men  stand  firm  at  their  post,  though  conscious  that  it 
is  in  vain.  The  three  hundred  at  Thermopylae,  the  six 
hundred  at  Balaklava,  the  Fifteenth  and  Twentieth 
Massachusetts  at  Ball's  Bluff,  —  their  heroism  affects 
us  more  deeply  than  that  of  the  men  who  share  the 
triumphs  of  victorious  days. 

Such  moments  of  heroic  courage  indicate  to  us  what 
is  the  real  nobleness  of  life.  It  is  to  do  all,  and  then 
stand ;  to  stand  firm  to  our  duty,  loyal  to  right,  faith- 
ful to  justice  and  truth,  whether  men  hear  or  forbear. 
This  makes  it  worth  while  to  live.  If  a  man  only  lives 
for   success,  he   is   poor   and   cowardly  when   disaster 


THE   WAR.  283 

comes.  Then  we  hear  him  finding  fault,  complaining, 
lamenting,  fearing  everything  ;  throwing  doubt  on 
everything;  talking  like  the  book  of  Ecclesiastes,  not 
like  the  book  of  Revelation. 

Having  learned  to  stand  by  the  flag,  we  may  also 
learn  to  stand  by  what  the  flag  sj'mbolizes ;  to  stand  up 
for  equal  rights,  universal  freedom,  for  justice  to  all, 
for  a  true  democracy. 

The  nation  says,  coming  to  itself,  "  I  am  a  nation 
with  ideas  and  duties,  and  I  am  here  to  do  them."  And 
that  is  what  it  has  not  said  before  for  the  last  thirty  or 
forty  years.  Patriotism  is  the  self-consciousness  of  a 
nation ;  and  while  we  were  only  individuals,  struggling 
for  our  own  selfish  good,  we  had  no  patriotism,  and 
could  have  none. 

God  does  not  take  away  the  Red  Sea,  nor  the  wilder- 
ness, nor  Jordan,  but  goes  with  us  through  them  all,  — 
a  cloud  by  day,  a  pillar  of  fire  by  night. 

What  deeper  wound  in  the  heart  than  the  sense  of  an 
irreparable  loss  ?  But  within  these  two  years  we  have 
seen  the  best  blood  of  the  land,  the  purest  and  noblest 
children  born  in  our  Northern  homes,  go  out  to  die, 
with  their  fathers'  blessing  and  their  mothers'  kiss. 
These  children,  for  whose  coming  God  prepared  this 
fair  land,  that  they  might  open  tlieir  infant  eyes  on  the 
beauty  of  its  hills  and  valleys,  its  lakes  and  forests  ;  for 
whose  childhood  past  generations  of  thinkers,  from 
Plato  and  Aristotle  down  to  Pestalozzi  and  Horace 
Mann,  have  been  providing  methods  of  education,  — 
these  young  men,  purified  in  tlie  calm  atniosi)licr('  of 
virtuous  homes,  developed  by  the  training  and  disci- 
pline of  schools,  of  study,  of  books,  of  travel,  tlie  costly 
fruit  of  the  latest  century  and  the  most  advanced  race, 


284  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

go  to  die  in  a  field  of  unavailing  destruction.  I  visit 
their  mothers  or  sisters,  their  fathers  or  brothers,  when 
the  fatal  news  arrives.  I  go  with  fear,  dreading  to 
meet  a  great  and  hopeless  anguish.  I  find  heaven 
there.  I  find  the  peace  of  God  in  their  souls.  I  go  to 
carry  sympathy,  and  words  of  comfort ;  but  I  receive 
instead  inspiration.  The  boy,  falling  on  the  battlefield, 
renews  all  the  tales  of  Greek  and  Roman  heroism.  We 
can  burn  our  "Plutarch."  AVe  do  not  need  to  read 
hereafter  the  stories  of  Themistocles,  of  Aristides,  of 
Leonidas.  Your  brothers  and  sons  are  to  be  spoken  of 
in  history  forever,  and  are  to  be  the  illuminating  lights 
of  the  coming  age. 

FROM    HIS    DIARY. 

January  1,  1863.  President  Lincoln's  proclamation, 
freeing  the  slaves.  [Announcement  had  been  made  of 
this  proclamation  on  the  22d  of  September,  to  take  effect 
on  the  1st  of  January.]  Tremont  Temple  ;  I  speak. 
Tea  at  Mrs.  Ellis  Gray  Loring's.  [Mr.  Loring  was 
one  of  the  original  Abolitionists,  a  member  of  the 
Church  of  the  Disciples,  and  a  near  personal  friend.] 
Evening,  go  to  meet  the  Educational  Commission  at 
Mrs.  Cabot's.  [This  was  a  commission  which  had  in 
charge  the  sending  of  teachers  to  the  freedmen  at  Port 
Boyal  and  other  points  occupied  by  the  national  forces.] 

TO    N.    AUGUSTUS    STAPLES. 

January  1,  1863. 

I  shall  be  in  Washington  on  the  second  Sunday  in 
January,  and  cannot  exchange  with  you  on  that  day.  I 
am  sorry  it  happens  so,  for  I  wished  to  have  an  ex- 
change with  you. 

This  is  the  great  day  which  separates  forever  the 
people  of  this  Union  from  slavery  and  slaveholding,  — 
for  the  border  slavery  will  fall  of  itself  soon. 

Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth,  peace, 
good  will  to  men. 


THE  WAR.  285 


FROM    HIS    DIAKY. 

Sunday,  January  4,  1863.  Preach  Xew  Year's  ser- 
mon on  the  proclamation.  Afternoon,  Lord's  Supper. 
Leave  for  Washington  at  11.10. 

Jan.  7.  Tom,  Lilian  and  I  leave  [Philadelphia]  for 
Washington  at  11. o5. 

Jan.  8.  To  the  Capitol ;  President's  levee.  Call  on 
Mr.  Sam.  Hooper,  dine  with  Judge  Thomas.  [Hon. 
Benjamin  F.  Thomas,  then  member  of  Congress  for  ^Ir. 
Clarke's  district.] 

Jan.  11.  Preacli  in  the  Senate  Chamber ;  good  con- 
gregation. Lilian  and  1  drive  with  ]\Irs.  S.  Hooper  to 
the  contraband  camp.  Dine  at  Mr.  Hooper's  with  ^Ir. 
Sumner  and  Captain  Bliss. 

Jan.  12.  Smithsonian ;  Sanitary  ;  Capitol ;  Senate, 
House,  and  Library ;  Long  Bridge. 

Jan.  13.  Carriage  with  Henry  Huidekoper  and  Colo- 
nel and  Mrs.  Ashurst  to  Arlington  Heights,  and  to 
Colonel  Wells'  camp  at  Alexandria. 

He  thus  records  one  of  the  incidents  of  this  visit  to 
W^ashington. 

I  went  one  Sunday  afternoon  to  the  contraband  camp, 
[near  Wiishington]  wlicre  are  collected  the  negroes, 
men,  women,  and  children,  who  have  escaped  from  slav- 
eiy.  Small-pox  being  among  them,  we  could  not  go 
into  their  houses  ;  but  they  gathered  around  the  car- 
riage, and  their  superintendent  asked  them  to  sing  for 
us:  they  sang  hymns,  one  woman  giving  out  the  lines, 
and  the  rest  singing,  swaying  their  bodies  with  a  slow 
motion  backward  and  forward.  At  the  recpiest  of  the 
superintendent,  I  said  something  to  them  ;  and  they  re- 
plied, "  Yes,  sir,"  '•  That  's  right,"  "  We  will,  sir,"  and 
so  on  ;  and  when  I  ended  they  said,  "Thank  you,  sir." 
Then  one  or  two  of  the  men  told  their  experiences  in 


286  DIARY  AND  COBBESPONDENCE. 

slavery,  and  how  they  escaped,  and  how  they  had  left 
behind  their  friends  and  children,  tears  streaming  from 
their  eyes,  and  others  crying  too  ;  for  all  had  left  some 
behind ;  and  the  ladies  in  the  carriage  cried  with  them. 
Lastly,  an  old  negro  man  prayed,  leaning,  like  Jacob, 
on  the  top  of  his  staff ;  and  all  the  rest  knelt  on  the 
ground,  in  the  mud,  and  solemnly  said  "  Amen,"  or  else 
sang  a  sort  of  chanting  assent,  in  places  where  they 
were  moved  to,  —  a  low  under-song,  as  it  seemed,  of 
sympathy.  We  all  noticed,  while  they  sang,  what  a 
profoundly  reverent  expression  was  on  their  faces ; 
surely  such  as  I  never  saw  on  the  faces  of  white  men. 
This  visit  to  these  poor  people,  Hebrews  in  the  wilder- 
ness, who  had  come  out  of  Egypt,  but  had  not  yet 
reached  the  promised  land,  wa?  very  touching.  I  was 
told  that  they  easily  found  work  in  the  District,  the 
able-bodied  men  and  the  good  female  house-servants 
very  easily.  I  asked  one  colored  woman,  just  from 
Virginia,  if  they  had  heard  down  there,  among  the 
slaves,  of  the  President's  Proclamation.  She  said, 
"  Oh,  yes,  massa !  we  all  knows  about  it ;  only  we  dars  n't 
let  on.  We  pretends  not  to  know.  I  said  to  my  ole 
massa,  ^W^hat's  this  Massa  Lincoln  is  going  to  do  to 
the  poor  nigger  ?  I  hear  he  is  going  to  cut  'em  up  awful 
bad.  How  is  it,  massa  ? '  I  just  pretended  foolish, 
sort  of." 

In  July,  1863,  Mr.  Clarke  went  to  Gettysburg,  to  find 
a  young  relative  wdio  had  been  wounded  in  the  battle 
and  was  reported  missing.     He  writes  :  — 

The  more  I  look  at  it,  the  more  I  deem  the  battle  of 
Gettysburg  the  most  decisive  ever  fought  on  this  con- 
tinent. ...  On  Tuesday  afternoon,  four  days  after  the 
battle,  I  spent  an  hour  on  the  field. 

I  walked  up  the  road  from  the  town  toward  the 
cemetery.     All  along  the  way  lay  soldiers  who  had  been 


THE   WAR.  287 

killed.  .  .  .  Poor  desolated  homes,  South  as  well  as 
North  !  Long  will  they  look  in  vain  lur  those  dear  to 
them  as  ours  to  us.  .  .  . 

All  the  churches  had  been  turned  into  hospitals.  The 
pews  were  floored  over,  and  the  men  lay  close  together 
with  every  variety  of  wounds,  but  all  so  patient  and  so 
quiet  that  it  touched  one's  heart  to  see  thi.>m.  After 
two  or  three  hours'  search  I  found  my  young  nephew, 
a  Harvard  graduate  of  1802,  among  the  ten  thousand 
wounded  in  and  around  Gettysburg.  He  commanded  a 
regiment  of  four  hundred  men  in  the  first  day's  battle, 
when  the  First  and  Eleventh  Army  Corps  held  back  for 
four  long  hours  the  whole  of  Lee's  army.  This  regi- 
ment, with  two  others,  making  twelve  hundred  in  all, 
held  back  five  thousand  men.  They  were  shelled  for 
an  hour,  and  then  were  under  a  fire  of  musketry  from 
the  whole  five  thousand  for  another  hour.  Most  of  the 
officers  were  wounded,  some  of  them  two  or  three 
times.  Of  four  hundred  men  belonging  to  this  regi- 
ment, only  a  hundred  and  five  came  out  untouched. 

Our  officers  and  soldiers  understand  more  and  more 
that  the  conflict  is  between  liberty  and  slavery,  between 
civilization  and  barbai'ism,  between  Christianity  and 
Antichrist.  What  else  supports  them,  and  gives  them 
such  patience  and  fortitude  ?  It  is  the  most  marked 
feature  of  the  war,  this  supreme  peace  of  men  who  seem 
to  have  lost  everything  that  makes  life  worth  having. 
I  saw  men  maimed,  crippled  for  life  ;  but  they  all  said, 
"No  matter,  we  beat  them."  I  saw  a  man  wlio  liad  h>st 
both  his  eyes ;  but  he  was  cheerful,  even  merry.  ( )ne 
man  who  had  lost  a  foot  said,  "  I  would  ratlicr  liavc  lost 
the  other  than  not  have  won  the  victory."  AVlicn  I  saw 
my  nephew,  who  had  lost  his  right  arm,  cheorlnl  and 
contented  ;  when  I  saw  all  these  young  soldiers,  many 
of  them  badly  wounded,  so  modest  and  so  manly,  with- 
out exultation,  but  with  this  earnest  satisfaction  in 
having    done    something    really    great,  —  I   could    not 


288  DIABY  AND  COERESPONDENCE. 

grieve  any  more  for  their  loss.  I  saw  that  each  lost 
limb,  each  wound,  each  scar,  was  the  Cross  of  the 
Legion  of  Honor,  to  be  worn  always,  as  a  proof  that 
they  had  deserved  well  of  their  country  ;  as  a  proof  to 
themselves  that  they  had  not  lived  in  vain. 

TO    HIS    SISTER    IN    CANADA. 

Jamaica  Plain,  September  5,  1863. 
H.  J.  H.  and  A.  C.  H.  came  here  yesterday,  —  the 
former  to  go  back  to  college,  the  latter  to  the  High 
School.  They  spent  their  vacation  in  catching  Morgan. 
They,  with  F.  W.  H.  and  the  two  B.'s,  joined  a  Mead- 
ville  company  which  volunteered  to  go  to  protect  Pitts- 
burgh. When  there,  they  were  sent  to  guard  the  line 
of  the  Ohio  against  Morgan's  retreat,  helped  catch  him, 
and  were  sent  to  guard  him  on  his  way  to  Columbus. 
That  is  the  way  boys  spend  their  summer  vacation  in 
the  States. 

Of  a  young  soldier  who  belonged  to  the  Church  of 
the  Disciples,  and  was  killed  in  May,  1864,  Mr.  Clarke 
said :  — 

Henry  May  Bond  went  to  the  war,  and  returned  to 
it  again,  from  a  pure  sense  of  duty.  He  had  no  taste 
for  military  life  ;  in  his  modesty  he  distrusted  his  own 
fitness  for  the  service  ;  but  he  thought  it  his  duty,  hav- 
ing served  his  time  in  a  nine-months'  regiment,  to  enlist 
again.  In  a  letter  to  a  brother  officer  he  says  :  "  In  the 
hour  of  personal  danger  I  am  strong  and  courageous 
only  in  the  faith  that,  should  it  please  God  to  take  my 
life  while  in  the  discharge  of  what  I  deem  to  be  my 
highest  duty,  all  will  be  well  with  me.  I  should  be 
worth  nothing  to  my  friends  or  my  country  without 
that  faith  in  God."  So  the  good,  brave  boy  lived, 
cheerfully  and  patiently  ;  so,  cheerfully  and  patiently, 
he  died. 


TEE   WAR.  289 


TO    E.    C.    C. 

June  18,  1864. 

...  Do  you  remember  David  W.  Norton,  who  joined 
our  cliurch  eight  years  ago,  and  afterwards  went  to 
Chicago  ?  He  became  major  in  an  Illinois  regiment, 
fought  in  all  the  chief  battles,  and  was  killed,  Juiu*  .'5, 
by  a  rebel  sharpshooter,  while  in  front  of  our  lines 
with  the  general,  sketching  the  enemy's  lines.  Monday 
I  went  to  Mount  Auburn  to  the  funeral.  Yesterday  I 
received  a  cane  he  cut  for  me  on  Lookout  Mountain, 
after  the  battle. 

...  Do  you  see  how  bravely  the  colored  soldiers 
have  fought  at  Petersburg  ?  They  have  been  praised 
by  the  generals  on  the  field  for  their  courage.  Still, 
Government  can  pay  them  only  seven  dollars  a  month  ! 
I  talked  with  Governor  Andrew  about  it  after  church 
last  Sunda}^  He  said,  "  I  wrote  last  week  to  Charles 
Sumner  and  Thaddeus  Stevens  that  I  should  pursue 
this  matter  without  rest  or  pause;  that  I  should  neither 
forget  nor  forgive  any  neglect  or  opposition  in  regard 
to  it ;  that  I  would  not  die  till  I  had  vindicated  the 
rights  of  the  colored  soldiers."  .  .  . 

TO    E.    C.    C. 

AVasiiington,  June  'JO,  lS»v4. 
I  came  to  this  city  last  Friday,  preaclied  in  the  Capi- 
tol on  Sunday,  and  have  been  seeing  a  number  of  i)er- 
sons  since  then.  T  have  had  one  or  two  good  talks 
with  Mr.  Chase  about  public  affairs;  also  witli  Charles 
Sumner.  As  I  am  locum  tciiens  of  Chai»lain  Channing, 
I  have  the  entree  of  the  Senate  and  Hdusc  as  1  please, 
so  that  I  can  go  in  and  sit  on  one  of  the  sofas  beliind 
the  members,  and  talk  to  tliose  I  know  as  they  jm.ss 
me.  Our  'Mv.  Boutwell  made  a  very  good  speerli  a  few 
days  since.  ISfr.  Sumner  has  succeeded,  within  the 
past  week,  in  getting  through  Congress  laws  to  repeal 


290  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

the  laws  authorizing  a  coast-wise  slave-trade  ;  to  repeal 
the  fugitive  slave  laws  ;  to  allow  colored  people  to  tes- 
tify before  the  United  States  courts  ;  and  to  establish 
a  Freedman's  Bureau. 

To-day  I  am  going  to  the  front  as  one  of  a  Sanitary 
Belief  Corps.  I  go  to  Fortress  Monroe,  City  Point,  — 
the  lines,  —  and  Norfolk  ;  stay  three  or  four  days,  and 
return  to  Baltimore  on  Monday.  I  hope  to  see  and 
hear  a  good  deal  in  these  three  days.  I  wish  I  had 
you  with  me.  We  have  never  traveled  much  together, 
and  I  should  enjoy  having  you  by  me. 

TO    A.    H.    C. 

New  York,  April  4,  1865. 

What  good  news  !  These  things  seem  to  come  as 
apples  fall  when  they  are  ripe  ;  we  pull  at  them  in 
spring  and  summer  and  they  hold  on,  but  at  last  drop 
of  themselves  so  quietly  that  we  hardly  notice  it.  Abo- 
lition of  slavery,  fall  of  Charleston,  fall  of  Kichmond, 
—  when  they  arrive  they  are  like  things  foreordained 
from  the  foundation  of  the  world.  But  there  is  a  sad 
story  to  follow  of  losses,  — another  great  flood  of  grief 
to  rush  over  the  land,  giving  its  pathetic  minor  to  the 
music  of  thanksgiving.  But  let  us  hope  that  the  end 
has  come.  .  .  .  We  heard  of  the  fall  of  Richmond,  at 
Springfield.  It  startled  Henry  B.  Eogers  into  such  un- 
wonted enthusiasm  that  he  clapped  a  hand  on  each  of 
my  shoulders,  and  half  embraced  me.  "  Negro  troops 
too,"  said  he,  "  think  of  that !  "  I  did  think  of  it, 
with  grateful  tears,  in  my  heart  if  not  in  my  eyes,  to 
that  great  Wisdom  who  does  all  things  well.  .  .  . 

I  shall  see  Dr.  Bellows  this  morning,  —  ride  down 
Broadway  to  Wall  Street,  and  see  how  the  city  looks, 
then  come  and  work  on  my  sermon  till  the  last  minute. 
Let  us  trust  that  whether  it  be  good  or  bad,  the  Master 


THE   WAR.  291 

may  make  it  good  to  the  hearers  in  its  influence  and 
results. 

And  the  peace  came  that  summer. 

FROM    A    SERMOX    OF    OCTOBER   22,    1865. 

Yesterday,  the  Fifty -Fourth  Eegiment  of  colored 
troops  marched  through  Boston,  on  its  return  from  th(^ 
war,  and  was  disbanded.  Ah,  could  we  do  our  work  as 
that  regiment  has  done  its  work !  They  have  heli»t'd 
to  achieve  the  safety  of  the  nation  and  the  deliverance 
of  their  race. 

FROM    A    SERMON    OF    DECEMBER  7,    18G5. 

On  this  day  of  Thanksgiving,  while  thanking  God  for 
all  his  other  gifts,  let  us  thank  him  most  of  all  for  good 
men  —  men  loving  justice,  truth,  freedom,  Christianity, 
more  than  comfort  or  peace ;  men  ready  to  live  and  die 
for  an  idea  ;  enthusiasts  for  goodness  and  right. 

Good  men  save  the  State  ;  but  they  only  save  it  wlicn 
other  men  are  capable  of  being  moved  and  led  by  tln'ir 
example.  A  time  comes,  in  the  downfall  and  corruj)- 
tion  of  communities,  when  good  men  struggle  ineffectu- 
ally against  the  tendencies  of  ruin.  Hannibal  could  not 
save  Carthage.  jNIarcus  Antoninus  could  not  save  the 
Koman  Empire.  Demosthenes  could  not  save  Greece, 
and  Jesus  Christ  himself  could  not  save  Jerusalem  from 
decay  and  destruction.  Nations  can  go  too  far  to  l»* 
saved.  The  great  hope  of  this  land  is  in  tlie  fact  tliat 
the  mass  of  the  peo])le  mean  right,  and,  unless  misled 
by  demagogues,  will  do  riglit.  TUit,  for  tliis  hope  to  be 
realized,  all  Christians  and  all  patriots  must  work  to- 
gether. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

EDUCATION. 

The  reader  of  Mr.  Clarke's  autobiography  has  already- 
seen  how  central  and  vital  was  his  interest  in  public 
education  in  his  early  life.  He  had  been  a  teacher  soon 
after  he  left  college.  At  Louisville,  he  gave  his  per- 
sonal attention  to  elevating  the  public  schools,  and  be- 
came superintendent  of  schools  there  early  in  1839.  So 
soon  as  his  home  was  established  at  Jamaica  Plain,  he 
took  a  personal  interest  in  the  public  schools  of  that 
neighborhood,  and  was  chosen  for  successive  years  upon 
the  school  committee,  until  Jamaica  Plain  was  absorbed 
by  the  city  of  Boston. 

In  the  year  1863  he  was  appointed  by  Governor  An- 
drew a  member  of  the  State  Board  of  Education,  to  suc- 
ceed Governor  Boutwell.  The  Board  of  Education  in 
Massachusetts  has  the  entire  control  of  the  Normal 
Schools  and  of  the  Art  School.  He  retained  this  posi- 
tion until  December,  1869,  when  he  resigned.  He  was 
one  of  the  active  members  of  that  board.  He  drew 
up  its  annual  report  for  the  year  1868,  and  in  reference 
to  the  time  allotted  for  study,  he  proposed  that  eight 
hours'  application,  including  the  time  spent  in  school, 
be  fixed  as  the  outside  limit  of  brain  work  of  Normal 
School  pupils. 

In  the  year  1867  he  was  appointed  a  professor  in  the 
Divinity  School  of  Harvard  College.  It  was  understood 
that  he  was  not  to  live  at  Cambridge,  but  was  to  be 
present  two  days  in  the  week,^  and  a  good  deal  of  free- 

1  In  the  year  1867-68  he  gave  two  days ;  after  that  only  one  day. 


EDUCATION.  293 

dom  was  given  him  in  the  selection  of  his  subjects.  In 
the  quinquennial  catalogue  he  stands  as  "  Professor  of 
Natural  Theology  and  Christian  Doctrine,"  —  a  wide 
range  which  in  another  line  of  life  would  be  called  a 
pirate's  commission.  In  the  annual  catalogue,  at  the 
same  date,  his  title  stands,  "  Professor  of  Ethnic  lieli- 
gions  and  the  Creeds  of  Christendom."  Mr.  Clarke 
used  this  commission  almost  as  broadly  as  it  was  given. 
The  outcome  of  this  work  which  has  most  interest  for 
the  reading  public  is  found  in  the  two  books,  "  Stei)S 
of  Belief"  and  "Ten  Great  Keligions,"  of  which  he 
laid  the  foundations  in  lectures  prepared  at  this  time 
for  his  classes.  Besides  these,  which,  at  the  time, 
were  called  lectures  on  "  Comparative  Theology,"  he 
delivered  a  course  on  "  Christian  Doctrine."  After- 
wards he  prepared  several  lectures  on  "The  Koman 
Catholic  Church,"  and  on  other  subjects.  The  lectures 
on  subjects  specially  Christian  form  a  considerable  part 
of  his  courses.  In  the  autumn  of  1860,  his  subject  was 
"The  Apostle  Paul" 

His  duties  at  the  divinity  school  required  him  to 
spend  at  least  one  morning  every  week  with  the  stu- 
dents. He  enjoyed  the  work,  and  especially  his  rela- 
tionship with  the  young  men.  Indeed,  his  intercourse 
with  students  who  were  preparing  to  be  i)reachers  was 
always  interesting  to  him;  and  as  family  ties  often 
drew  him  to  Meadville,  where  is  situated  the  only 
divinity  school  of  the  Unitarian  Church  of  America,^  he 
maintained  a  friendly  intimacy  with  the  students  he 
found  there,  as  well  as  with  those  at  Cambridge. 

In  18GG  he  was  chosen  by  the  legislature  of  ^lassa- 
chusetts  an  overseer  of  Harvard  College,  and  wlien 
that  board  of  overseers  was  reconstituted  in  1S7.'!,  so 

^  The  Unit'iriun  Church  of  Anicrici  also  endowed  the  Can»])ri»lB-o 
divinity  school,  which  is  now  supported  by  tlie  eudowiufut  ;  hut  it  is 
distinctly  undt-rstood  that  the  school  shall  hi'  undnnonnnatidiial,  and 
its  professors  may  be  taken  from  any  Ciirislian  coniiuunion. 


294  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

that  the  alumni  should  choose  the  overseers,  he  was 
one  of  the  first  elected.  The  alumni  continued  to  elect 
him  as  often  as  they  could,  until  his  death. ^  Under  the 
constitution  of  the  board,  a  person  who  has  served  for 
two  terms  cannot  be  reelected  for  a  third,  without  a 
year's  interval. 

The  board  of  overseers  of  Harvard  College  is  one  of 
those  boards  of  which  the  instincts  of  Massachusetts 
men  are  very  fond,  which  has  very  few  powers,  but  a 
great  deal  of  power.^ 

It  would  be  hard  to  overstate  the  importance  of  the 
public  supervision  exercised  by  the  board  of  overseers. 
Exj)erience  proves  that  our  main  hope  for  the  perma- 
nence and  ever-widening  influence  of  the  university 
must  rest  upon  this  double-headed  organization.  The 
English  practice  of  setting  up  a  single  board  of  private 
trustees  to  carry  on  a  school  or  a  charity  of  some 
founder  or  founders  has  certainly  proved  a  bad  one ; 
and  when  we  count  by  generations,  the  institutions  thus 
established  have  proved  short-lived.  The  same  causes 
which  have  brought  about  the  decline  of  English  en- 
dowed schools  would  threaten  the  life  of  the  university 
were  it  not  for  the  existence  of  the  board  of  over- 
seers. 

Mr.  Clarke  was  a  loyal  child  of  the  university,  who 
felt  the  value  of  the  training  to  himself.  He  could 
always  be  relied  upon  for  active  work  in  the  business 
of  the  overseers,  and  was  always  glad  to  take  his  share 
of  the  details  of  the  work.  He  early  formed  very 
broad  plans  for  the  divinity  school,  plans  which  he  saw 


1  That  is,  they  chose  him  at  the  elections  of  1866,  1873,  1880,  and 
1886. 

2  Doctor  Dwig-ht  says  of  Harvard  and  Bowdoin  Colleges,  that  each 
of  them  is  governed  by  two  boards,  whose  business  it  is  to  quarrel 
with  each  other ;  but  that  Yale  College  is  more  fortunate.  The  ar- 
rangement at  Yale  was  for  one  board,  which  did  as  Doctor  D wight 
bade  it. 


EDUCATION.  295 

made  real  in  part,  while  for  a  i)art  the  future  is  still  re- 
sponsible. He  was  liimself,  by  well-formed  conviction,  a 
positive  Unitarian,  but  no  man  was  more  loyal  to  the 
Church  Universal  than  he,  as  indeed  a  loyal  Unitarian 
should  be.^ 

It  may  be  possible  that  a  man  who  believes  in  the 
AVestminster  Confession,  with  all  his  mind  and  heart 
and  soul  and  strength,  shall  do  justice  to  the  theological 
views  of  Emerson  and  Parker,  and  can  be  trusted  in  a 
theological  school  to  present  such  views  fairly.  lUit  it 
is  not  })robable. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  will  not  often  happen  that  a 
professor  chosen  for  his  duty  because  he  has  repudiated 
High  Calvinism  in  all  its  works  and  ways  will  give 
precise  respect  to  the  just  gradations  and  the  nice  de- 
pendencies of  the  Westminster  Confession. 

Mr.  Clarke,  therefore,  all  his  life  long,  was  hoping 
and  planning  for  a  real  "  University  of  Theology  "  in 
Cambridge,  where  every  important  communion  should 
be  represented  by  some  one  who  could  state  its  views, 
its  dogmas  and  its  plans,  and  even  its  rituals,  in  such  a 
way  that  the  members  of  that  communion  should  think 
themselves  fairly  represented.  He  did  not  propose  to 
have  twenty  or  tliirty  }>rofessors  who  had  no  strong 
convictions  on  these  dividing  subjects.  Kather,  he 
wished  to  have  as  many  as  possible  who  liad  strong 
convictions.  The  man  who  wrote  "Ten  Great  Reli- 
gions "  was  not  the  man  who  would  wish  to  have  the 
professors  of  a  divinity  school  ignore  the  existence  of 
all  religions  except  Christianity.     And   tlic  man   wlio 

'  The  only  orig-in  of  the  word  Viiitariau  for  which  tlieru  is  hlfl- 
torit-al  autliority  must  be  hmked  for  uiuouf;  the  Uniti  or  Vnitnrii  who, 
after  the  Synod  of  Thorde,  pave  their  a.ssent  t«)  the  jihin  (»f  Unity 
there  a{i;-reed  upon,  a.s  a  method  of  mutual  tolenition  amonp  Catholics, 
Calvinist-s.  Lutherans,  and  Soeinians.  Historically,  there  can  he  f«)und 
no  authority  for  ref<-rrin;,'-  the  ori^^^in  of  the  wonl  to  a  distinctive  h«di<'f 
in  the  unity  of  (Jod,  which  is,  indce<l,  believtd  in  hy  Trinitariani* 
quite  as  earnestly  as  by  Unitarians. 


296  DIABY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

wrote  "  Truths  and  Errors  of  Orthodoxy "  would  be 
sure  that  what  is  known  as  Orthodoxy  was  fairly  inter- 
preted, by  its  very  best  advocates,  before  the  pitiless 
jury  of  intelligent  young  men. 

In  1864,  Mr.  Clarke  was  made  chairman  of  a  commit- 
tee to  consider  this  subject.  He  was  indefatigable  in 
obtaining  information,  writing  to  and  consulting  with 
professors  and  officials  of  other  universities.  In  the 
report  drawn  up  by  him,  and  presented  in  February, 
1865,  to  the  board  of  overseers,  he  says  :  — 

What  your  committee  are  prepared,  at  this  time,  to 
recommend  to  the  corporation  and  government  of  the 
university  is,  simply  to  extend  to  the  department  of 
theology  the  system  of  university  lectures  already  in- 
augurated in  other  departments. 

Let  the  corporation  invite  members  of  different  de- 
nominations to  guarantee  an  adequate  remuneration  to 
lecturers  taken  from  among  their  own  best  scholars. 
The  most  eminent  men  might  thus  be  brought  to  Cam- 
bridge, from  among  the  Presbyterian,  Baptist,  Meth- 
odist, Episcopalian,  or  other  denominations,  to  give,  each, 
a  course  of  lectures  on  some  branch  of  theology.  .  .  . 

If  there  be  such  a  thing  as  a  university,  it  ought  to 
have  a  department  of  theology;  and  this  department 
ought  to  contain  professors  of  every  chief  school  of 
opinion.  What  would  some  of  us  not  give  far  an  op- 
portunity to  attend  such  a  school  even  now  ?  What 
would  not  all  earnest  and  truth-loving  young  men,  long- 
ing for  solid  knowledge  in  religion,  not  sacrifice  for 
such  an  opportunity  ? 

This  war  is  breaking  up  sectarianism.  Now  is  the 
time  to  institute  such  a  measure,  —  to  try  whether  in 
this  Christian  land  we  cannot  have  one  school  of  Chris- 
tian theology  where  the  student  can  hear  differing  and 
opposing  views  calmly  and  honestly  stated. 


EDUCATION.  297 


TO    E.    E.    HALE. 

March  14,  1SG7. 
I  inclose  you  a  copy  of  some  letters  received  by  me 
when  attempting  to  do  something  to  enlarge  the  theo- 
logical department  of  the  university.  You  may,  per- 
haps, use  to  advantage  the  opinions  of  some  of  these 
gentlemen  in  your  correspondence  about  the  Methodist 
and  Free-Will  Baptist  schools.  How  fast  things  move  ! 
It  is  only  two  years  since  Dr.  Walker  and  some  of  tliose 
to  whom  I  wrote  thought  all  attempts  at  bringing  to- 
gether the  sects  at  Cambridge  chimerical.  Kow,  there 
seems  already  a  prospect  of  having  there  the  schools  of 
three  other  denominations  beside  the  Unitarian,  —  the 
Episcopal,  Free-Will  Baptist,  and  Methodist. 

He  favored  every  detail  of  the  arrangements  which 
have  led  to  some  approach  toward  such  a  university  in 
the  present  constitution  of  the  Cambridge  schools  of 
divinity.  The  divinity  school  in  which  he  himself 
was  educated  now  maintains  six  professors  and  three 
other  teachers,  and  the  students  are  permitted  to  at- 
tend the  lectures  given  in  all  the  branches  of  the  uni- 
versity by  more  than  two  hundred  professors  and  in- 
structors. Of  the  special  staff  of  the  divinity  school 
itself,  it  is  understood  that  three  professors  are  of  the 
Unitarian  communion,  two  of  the  Baptist,  and  one  of 
that  branch  of  the  Congregational  Church  of  New  Eng- 
gland  which  has  never  accepted,  as  the  other  has,  the 
Unitarian  name. 

During  the  winter  of  1S67-G8  he  lectured  on  Tues- 
days and  Thursdays  to  the  students  at  the  Cambridge 
Divinity  School.  In  one  of  his  reports  (after  mention- 
ing the  Tuesday  lesson)  he  says  :  — 

On  Thursdays  I   had  a  lesson  with  the  Senior  and 


298  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

Middle  classes  in  Christian  doctrine,  beginning  with 
Anthropology,  and  proceeding  to  Theology  proper,  Chris- 
tology,  Soteriology,  and  Ecclesiology.  Each  of  these 
courses  consisted  of  about  thirty  lessons. 

During  the  present  year  (1868-69)  I  visit  the  school 
only  one  day  in  the  week,  viz.,  Tuesday.  Finding  it 
impossible  to  give  two  days  to  this  work,  I  informed 
the  corporation,  through  the  president,  that  I  was  ready 
to  resign  altogether,  or  to  give  one  day  instead  of  two. 
The  president  told  me  that  they  preferred  to  have  me 
come  one  day  rather  than  not  at  all. 

Accordingly,  I  now  hear  the  whole  school  every  Tues- 
day, in  Natural  and  Revealed  Religion. 

The  course  will  consist  of  about  forty  lessons.  The 
first  part  will  relate  to  the  controversy  between  Athe- 
ism and  Theism ;  the  second,  to  that  between  Deism 
and  Christianity ;  the  third,  to  that  between  Catholic 
and  Protestant  Christianity ;  the  fourth,  to  that  be- 
tween Orthodox  and  Liberal  Protestant  Christianity. 
My  method  is  to  give  out,  at  the  end  of  each  lesson, 
three  or  four  questions,  which  are  the  subject  of  the 
next  lesson.  To  these  questions  I  request  each  member 
of  the  class  to  prepare  concise  written  answers.  The 
answers,  being  read,  are  discussed.  This  occupies  about 
an  hour.  I  then  read  my  own  answer  to  the  questions, 
which  occupies  from  twenty  minutes  to  half  an  hour. 

I  find  the  young  men  interested  in  their  studies. 
They  seem  to  put  their  minds  seriously  to  the  investi- 
gation and  discussion  of  these  questions. 

Rev.  C.  W.  Wendte,  at  that  time  a  pupil,  has  given 
us  these  recollections  :  — 

During  my  stay  at  the  Cambridge  divinity  school  in 
1868-69,  Mr.  Clarke  was  lecturer  or  professor.  His  com- 
ing was  an  event.  His  fresh,  unconventional  methods, 
his  simplicity,  piety,  and  friendliness  were  delightful  to 
the  students,  and  inspired  new  life  in  the  school. 


EDUCATION.  299 

His  courses  in  Speculiitive  Theology  were  awaktMiiiig 
and  kindling,  and  led  to  earnest  discussion  between  the 
students  and  the  professor,  and  among  the  students 
themselves. 

A  second  series  of  lectures  was  on  "The  Great  Re- 
ligions of  the  World,"  and  here  Dr.  Clarke  dei>arted 
from  the  traditional  methods  of  the  school.  As  in  the 
previous  course,  his  style  was  conversational  rather  than 
formal,  and  the  lecture  proper  rarely  occupied  more 
than  a  third  of  the  time  which  was  devoted  to  the  sub- 
ject. At  the  beginning  he  assigned  to  two  or  more  of 
the  class,  for  their  study  and  report,  one  of  the  ten  great 
religions  treated.  He  then  selected  a  question  or  topic 
for  the  ensuing  meeting  ;  e.  </.,  "  What  does  this  spi^ci- 
fic  religion  teach  about  God,"  or  "moral  obligation," 
or  "  immortality  ?  " 

TO    A    PROFESSOR    IX    A    THEOLOGICAL    SrilOOL. 

What  we  want  is  a  ministry  who  look  upon  their 
business  as  really  important,  and  are  thoroughl}-  in 
earnest  about  it ;  who  would  rather  be  preachers  and 
pastors  than  anything  else  in  the  world.  .  .  . 

You  must  give  the  young  men  a  chance  to  express 
freely  their  notions,  even  though  they  seem  to  you  to 
be  crude  and  foolish.  You  must  encourage  them  to  in- 
quire and  think  in  their  own  way,  rather  than  in  your 
way,  for  if  they  do  not,  they  will  not  think  at  all.  I 
judge  of  others  by  myself.  If  I  have  ever  gained  clear 
and  satisfactory  convictions,  it  has  been  by  following 
out  my  own  thoughts.  The  mind  of  a  young  man  wlio 
is  at  all  in  earnest  must  go  through  a  ])rocess  of  fernu'u- 
tation,  and  throw  off  a  deal  of  scum  in  tliat  way.  Tlie 
business  of  a  wise  teacher  is  to  guide  and  ivguhite  the 
process,  not  to  try  to  prevent  it. 

He  had  always  desired  that  among  tlie  dcpartnuuits 
of    university    instruction    more    attention    shouhl    bo 


300  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

given  to  tlie  study  of  modern  languages,  and  in  Janu- 
ary, I860  (the  same  winter  in  which  his  report  in  re- 
gard to  enlarging  the  divinity  school  was  offered),  he 
presented  a  report  on  this  subject.     He  says  :  — 

Your  committee's  conviction  of  the  importance  and 
the  needs  of  this  department  compels  it  to  state  em- 
phatically its  opinion  that  injustice  is  done  to  the  cause 
of  education,  and  to  every  class  which  graduates,  by  the 
low  position  assigned  to  modern  languages  in  the  uni- 
versity. While  Latin,  Greek,  and  mathematics  are 
made  obligatory  studies  during  the  freshman  and  sopho- 
more years,  and  Latin  and  Greek  during  the  junior 
year,  modern  languages  are  made  elective.  During  the 
first  year  no  place  is  given  to  them  even  as  elective  stu- 
dies. During  the  sophomore  year  French  is  permitted, 
"but  only  as  an  extra.  During  the  junior  year  one  mod- 
ern language  may  be  taken  instead  of  mathematics, 
and  another  instead  of  chemistry,  and  during  the  senior 
year  Italian  is  also  allowed  as  an  elective  study.  Your 
committee  cannot  but  consider  that  the  course  in  this 
respect  has  changed  for  the  worse  in  recent  times  ;  for 
formerly  modern  languages  were  required  studies,  even 
in  the  freshman  year.  .  .  . 

Your  committee  has  no  prejudice  against  the  Greek 
language ;  its  object  in  this  comparison  is  only  to 
show  how  little  is  done  for  modern  languages.  It  is 
difficult  to  see  the  benefit  that  it  will  be  to  a  class  of  a 
hundred  young  men  to  know  how  to  write  Greek  prose, 
but  surely  no  one  can  doubt  the  benefit  tliat  it  would  be 
to  them  to  be  able  to  write  and  speak  French,  German, 
Italian,  or  Spanish.  Probably  no  graduate  ever  will 
have  occasion  to  write  another  line  of  Greek  composi- 
tion ;  but  if  the  young  man  be  a  lawyer,  ability  to  speak 
German  may  help  him  to  clients  ;  if  he  be  a  merchant, 
to  be  able  to  write  French  or  Spanish  letters  will  be  of 
assistance.     Perhaps  half  of  every  class,  sometime  in 


EDUCATION.  301 

their  lives,  will  have  occasion  to  travel  abroad,  in  whidi 
case  to  speak  the  language  of  the  country,  however  im- 
perfectly, will  add  infinitely  to  the  pleasure  and  profit 
of  the  journey.  And  whether  the  graduate  becomes 
lawyer,  physician,  clergyman,  or  man  of  science,  he  will 
find  constant  benefit  in  being  able  to  read  with  ease 
books  and  periodicals  in  each  of  the  modern  lan- 
guages. .  .  . 

Grant  everything  that  can  be  said  in  favor  of  the 
study  of  Greek  —  the  beauty  of  the  Greek  language, 
the  richness  of  its  literature,  its  use  as  a  mental  disci- 
pline :  the  question  remains.  Which  is  the  most  use- 
ful ?..  .  And  may  not  the  intellect  be  disciplined  by 
useful  study,  as  well  as  by  useless  ?  We  consider  the 
time  given  to  Greek  composition  as  wholly  wasted  ex- 
cept as  far  as  the  mental  discipline  is  concerned.  It 
does  not  help,  but  actually  hinders  the  acquisition  of 
the  Greek  language  and  acquaintance  with  the  Greek 
literature.  Every  one  knows  that  to  learn  to  read  a 
language  and  to  learn  to  write  it  are  two  wholly  distinct 
mental  operations.  If  a  young  man  spends  his  strength 
and  time  in  learning  to  write  Greek,  he  has  just  so 
much  less  time  "and  strength  for  learning  to  read  it. 
One  of  your  committee  lately  went  to  New  York  in 
company  with  a  young  lady,  and  noticed  that  she  had 
taken  with  her  a  copy  of  the  Greek  Iliad  to  read  by  the 
way.  How  many  graduates  of  our  university  would  be 
likely  to  have  done  this  ?  Probably  very  few  gradu- 
ates of  Harvard  can  read  a  Greek  book  with  facility 
after  having  devoted  a  large  part  of  seven  of  the  best 
years  of  life  to  this  study.  Yet  this  young  lady  made 
no  claim  to  distinguished  scholarship.  She  liad  studied 
Greek  simply  in  order  to  read  (ireek  books.  (Conse- 
quently she  had  given  no  more  time  to  jjliilology  than 
was  necessary  for  this  purpose.  If  the  time  now  de- 
voted to  grammatical  minutia?,  to  tlie  subtiltios  of 
Greek  words  and  the  pt'dantry  of  Greek  jirosody  were 


302  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

spent  in  reading  the  literature,  and  if  after  the  first 
year  Greek  were  made  an  elective  study  to  be  taken 
only  by  those  who  had  a  taste  for  it,  we  should  find 
many  more  of  our  graduates  amusing  themselves  on 
their  journeys  with  Plato  or  Homer. 

And  we  cannot  but  take  this  occasion  to  enter  a  pro- 
test against  the  constant  tendency  to  make  grammars 
larger,  and  consequently  worse.  The  size  of  grammars 
has  become  a  sore  evil  in  education.  There  is  not  an 
intelligent  teacher  in  Massachusetts  but  will  tell  you 
that  if  the  Latin  and  Greek  grammars  contained  a 
quarter  of  their  present  contents,  they  would  be  four 
times  as  good. 

Your  committee  knows  perfectly  well  that  in  reply 
to  all  this  it  will  be  told  about  "mental  discipline." 
Mental  discipline,  however,  ought  not  to  be  made  the 
excuse  for  every  useless  and  irrelevant  study  which 
takes  the  place  of  what  would  be  useful  when  learned, 
as  well  as  a  discipline  in  learning.  .  .  . 

Mr.  Clarke  was  also  interested  in  the  admission  of 
women  to  Harvard  College,  and  in  1872  prepared  a 
report  on  this  subject.  Although  he  was  chairman  of 
this  committee,  he  was  in  a  minority ;  and  his  report, 
therefore,  was  a  minority  report.  He  had  obtained  in- 
formation from  President  White  of  Cornell  University, 
from  Oberlin  College,  from  Ann  Arbor,  from  Washing- 
ton University  at  St.  Louis,  and  other  colleges,  as  well 
as  many  normal  schools.  He  considered  the  result  of 
his  investigations  favorable  to  the  admission  of  women 
to  Harvard ;  but  the  other  members  of  the  committee 
differed  from  him,  and  the  plan  was  rejected. 

In  1873  the  admission  of  women  to  the  medical 
school  of  the  university  engaged  his  attention.  On 
this  subject  he  writes  to  Rev.  E.  E.  Hale :  — 


EDUCATION.  303 

Jamaica  Plain,  March  7,  IST^}. 

The  more  I  think  of  it,  the  more  important  it  seems 
to  me  that  the  arrangement  shall  be  made  by  which  the 
female  medical  school  shall  become  a  department  of 
the  medical  school  of  Harvard  University.  For  this 
end  I  am  ready  to  work ;  but,  unfortunately,  I  am  go- 
ing to  Troy  to-morrow  for  theatre  preaching,  and  have 
promised  to  stay  there  and  read  on  Monday  evening, 
and  so  shall  not  be  back  until  Tuesday  night.  After 
that  I  will  co9i)erate  with  you  in  raising  the  .^40,000. 

...  I  think  it  important  that  before  beginning  the 
subscription  we  should  have  some  definite  assurance 
from  the  trustees  of  the  medical  college  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  corporation  of  Harvard  University  on 
the  other,  that  by  raising  the  J^40,000  the  union  can  be 
accomplished.  Perhaps  you  already  have  all  the  guar- 
antees that  are  necessary  and  attainable  at  this  stage  of 
the  proceeding. 

If  you  decide  to  do  anything,  and  want  my  aid,  let 
me  find  a  letter  here  on  my  return,  telling  me  what  you 
wish  me  to  do. 

He  had  at  heart  every  change  in  the  customs  of  the 
university  which  should  give  more  worth  to  its  degrees, 
by  making  them  expressions  of  the  simple  truth,  and 
not  forms  of  respect  or  compliment.  With  this  view 
he  once  draughted  the  following  resolutions,  the  spirit 
of  which  has  passed  into  some  of  the  clianges  niiide  in 
the  university  since  that  time,  although  in  this  i)reeise 
form  they  never  were  accepted  by  the  board  of  overseers. 

Resolved,  That  this  board  recommend  to  the  cor})ora- 
tion, 

1.  That  all  the  degrees  given  in  the  university  shall 
be  attainable  by  examination. 

2.  That  no  honorary  degree  shall  be  conferred  iis  a 
compliment  to  mere  official  position. 


304  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

3.  That  to  obtain  by  examination  the  degree  of  Doc- 
tor of  Laws,  or  Doctor  of  Divinity,  residence  shall  not 
be  required,  and  that  residence  may  be  dispensed  with 
in  the  case  of  Master  of  Arts. 

4.  That  in  these,  three  departments  the  university 
may  accept,  in  place  of  examination,  and  as  an  equiva- 
lent therefor,  any  valuable  work  in  art,  law,  or  divin- 
ity, which"  work  shall  be  specified  in  the  diploma,  men- 
tioned when  the  degree  is  conferred,  and  recorded  in 
the  quinquennial  catalogue. 

All  his  life,  Mr.  Clarke  maintained  an  interest  in 
astronomical  science,  and  he  was  personally  fond  of 
observing  the  stars.  He  enlarged  his  apparatus  for 
this  purpose  from  time  to  time,  and  in  the  year  1877 
built  a  little  platform  above  his  study  for  an  observa- 
tory, and  mounted  there  a  telescope  with  a  four-inch 
object-glass,  which  he  used,  to  his  great  delight,  in  the 
study  of  the  heavens.  No  member  of  the  board  of 
overseers  of  the  college  took  more  personal  interest 
than  he  did  in  the  Harvard  Observatory,  and  he  was 
for  many  years  chairman  of  the  visiting  committee. 

The  reader  who  is  trying  to  see  how  he  divided  his 
time  in  the  last  twenty  years  of  his  life  must  give  one 
day  in  fourteen  of  each  winter  to  meetings  of  the  board 
of  overseers,  or  to  visits  of  examination  at  Cambridge. 

During  the  same  years  he  was  one  of  the  trustees  of 
the  Boston  Public  Library.  This  service  interested 
him  extremely,  and  he  was  one  of  the  most  active  of 
the  board,  —  always  in  sympathy  with  every  improve- 
ment which  brought  the  treasures  of  the  library  more 
easily  into  the  hands  of  the  people,  where  they  belong. 
Nothing  interested  him  more  than  the  observations 
which  show  what  people  want  to  read,  which  are,  of 
course,  an  admirable  test  of  the  range  of  public  education. 

His  desire  to  extend  the  popular  knowledge  of  astron- 
omy, and  the  habit  of  observing  the  stars,  led  him  to 


EDUCATION.  305 

publish  a  series  of  mai)s  of  the  northern  heavens,  with  a 
lantern,  devised  by  himself,  b}'  means  of  which  the 
observer  may  trace  the  forms  of  the  constellations,  and 
determine  the  name  of  a  star  without  having  to  return 
to  the  house  to  examine  an  atlas  of  the  heavens.  On 
one  side  of  the  lantern  slides  may  be  inserted,  the  light 
within  the  lantern  shining  through  perforations  in  the 
pasteboard.  The  differing  sizes  of  the  holes  indicate 
the  different  magnitude  of  the  stars,  and  their  relative 
positions  give  the  forms  of  the  different  constellations. 
All  astronomical  maps  try  to  represent  something ;  but 
they  do  not  try,  as  these  do,  to  represent  it  to  a  student 
who  is  out  of  doors,  and  who  from  the  nature  of  his 
study  wishes  to  be  in  darkness. 

A  story  is  told  of  one  of  his  family  who  was  waked 
in  the  middle  of  the  night  by  hearing  steps  on  the  roof 
near  her  chamber.  In  the  morning  Mr.  Clarke  acknow- 
ledged that  he  was  the  midnight  wanderer,  and  asked 
why  she  did  not  come  out  to  join  him.  He  had  been 
watching  through  the  night  for  an  occultation  of  Jupi- 
ter.    This  was  in  January,  1886. 

He  was  well-nigh  a  perfect  teacher.  His  Bible-classes, 
and  his  classes  of  history  and  literature,  which  in  the 
work  of  his  church  he  regularly  carried  on,  were  stimu- 
lating and  suggestive.  He  was  so  fond  of  young  people 
that  they  could  hardly  fail  to  learn  from  him.  "  Every- 
thing I  know  of  the  Norse  mythology/'  said  a  young 
student,  who  will  one  day  be  teaching  others  in  the  same 
line,  "I  learned  from  him  as  we  sat  together,  summer 
evenings,  on  the  piazza." 

His  book  called  "  Self -Culture,"  wliicli  emlxidies  not 
only  his  theories,  but  a  great  deal  of  the  ])ractii*al  expe- 
rience of  his  life,  has  found,  probably  for  tliat  reason, 
a  very  general  welcome.  Up  to  this  present  time  it  lias 
passed  through  fifteen  editions.  Perhaps  this  book  may 
be  considered  one  of  his  best  contributions  to  the  cause 
of  education. 


306  DIAJttY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

He  read  French  and  German  with  perfect  ease,  but 
he  could  not  readily  carry  on  a  conversation  in  either 
language.  He  has  told  of  his  trying,  in  Italy,  to  get 
some  explanation  about  the  tonsure  from  one  of  the 
clergy  in  a  church  which  he  was  visiting.  For  this 
purpose  he  put  his  questions  in  his  best  Latin.  The 
priest  thought  that  Mr.  Clarke  wanted  some  one  to 
whom  he  could  confess,  and  eagerly  exclaiming,  "  Si ! 
si !  "  rushed  off  to  find  a  priest  for  the  confessional. 

The  reader  will  observe  in  the  letters  and  diaries  fre- 
quent allusions  to  drawing.  He  was  never  very  skillful 
in  drawing,  but  he  enjoyed  using  his  pencil,  and  often 
drew  the  outlines  of  a  mountain  or  lake  view,  or  of  a 
building  which  he  wished  to  preserve  in  his  memory. 

In  a  short  speech  at  the  Commencement  Dinner  of 
1886,  he  gives  a  review  of  the  progress  which  Harvard 
College  had  made  since  he  knew  it  first :  — 

It  is  said  that  old  men  are  apt  to  think  th^t  the 
former  days  were  better  than  these.  I  have  known 
Harvard  College  since  1825,  —  that  is,  for  sixty  years, 
—  and  I  find  it  has  been  improving  all  the  time.  I 
have  been  on  the  board  of  overseers  since  1863,  except 
a  single  year,  in  which  I  was  excluded  by  the  act  of 
incorporation,  and  these  have  been  years  of  remarkable 
progress  in  the  university. 

1.  The  choice  of  the  board  of  overseers  by  the  alumni. 
When  I  entered  the  board,  the  members  were  chosen 
by  the  legislature.  There  was  a  great  deal  of  effort 
used  to  be  elected ;  but  as  soon  as  a  man  was  chosen, 
he  seemed  to  lose  all  interest  in  the  matter.  Only  one 
or  two  meetings  were  held  in  the  year,  and  many  never 
came  even  to  those.  The  reports  of  the  visiting  com- 
mittee were  often  hastily  written  at  the  meeting  at 
which  they  were  to  be  presented.  Since  the  board  has 
been  chosen  by  the  alumni  the  greatest  improvement 
has  taken  place.    We  have  had  as  members  some  of  the 


EDUCATION.  307 

best  men  in  the  State  and  the  best  friends  of  the  col- 
lege. The  meetings  have  been  frequent,  and  tlie  dis- 
cussions earnest  and  interesting.  .  .  . 

2.  Another  important  improvement  has  been  made 
in  introducing  the  elective  system.  The  difference  be- 
tween good  teaching  and  poor  is  that  the  good  teacher 
leads,  and  the  poor  one  drives.  The  most  essential 
qualification  of  the  good  teacher  is  enthusiasm,  of  the 
scholar,  interest.  When  the  students  at  Harvard  were 
forced  to  pursue  a  plan  of  study  which  was  unattrac- 
tive, they  had  to  be  driven ;  now  they  have  only  to  be 
led. 

3.  jModern  languages.  When  I  came  on  the  board 
of  overseers  modern  languages  were  systematically  dis- 
credited. There  were  four  times  as  many  teachers  for 
the  two  ancient  languages  as  there  were  for  the  four 
modern  languages,  and  a  much  lower  rank  was  given 
for  proficiency  in  modern  languages  than  for  the  same 
proficiency  in  Latin  and  Greek.  The  doors  to  the 
knowledge  contained  in  Greek  and  Latin  books  were 
wide  open,  but  those  which  admitted  to  the  science,  art, 
and  literature  of  France,  Italy,  Germany,  and  Spain 
were  hardly  opened  at  all.  Now  these  languages  have 
full  justice  done  them.  In  the  same  way,  scientific 
pursuits  have  been  generously  encouraged. 

4.  The  system  of  voluntary  recitations  and  written 
examinations  is,  in  my  opinion,  a  great  im}»rovement. 
Formerly,  the  only  business  of  a  teacher  was  to  hear 
recitations,  and  make  marks  for  merit.  Xow,  he  has 
the  opportunity  of  teaching.  This  is  one  of  the  great- 
est educational  discoveries  of  modern  times,  —  that  the 
business  of  a  teacher  is  to  teach. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

WORK    IN    THE    PULPIT. 

In  Mr.  Clarke's  earlier  letters  and  diaries,  when  lie 
was  still  under  the  rather  benumbing  influence  of  the 
college  life  of  those  days,  he  alludes  more  than  once  to 
his  determination  to  acquire  the  power  of  preaching 
without  notes.  In  Louisville,  particularly  when  he 
first  arrived  there,  he  saw  that  the  habit  of  the  place 
required  ready  ability  for  extempore  speaking,  and  at 
the  first  regretted  his  own  deficiency.  But  so  far  as 
such  deficiency  existed,  he  soon  conquered  it.  He 
could  not  have  been  in  a  better  school  than  was  afforded 
him  by  his  seven  years  in  Kentucky.  And  those  who 
remember  his  active  life,  from  the  time  he  was  thirty 
years  old,  remember  him  as  a  person  who  "  thought  on 
his  feet "  with  great  precision,  who  spoke  easily  and 
effectively,  keeping  always  in  sight  the  end  which  he 
had  in  view  at  the  beginning.  The  reader  will  note 
Mr.  Higginson's  reference  to  this  power  in  another 
chapter  of  this  volume. 

He  tried  the  two  methods  of  preaching,  namely,  ex- 
temporizing from  brief  notes,  and  writing  his  sermon 
in  full.  Gradually  he  came  to  the  conviction  that  by 
the  latter  method  he  was  able  to  say  more  in  the  same 
time,  and  to  say  it  in  a  better  way.  There  was  also 
the  additional  advantage  in  this  method,  that  what  he 
wrote  was  ready  for  publication ;  but  this  was  a  secon- 
dary consideration. 

He  was  accustomed  to  write  the  greater  part  of  his 
sermon  on  the  morning  of  the  day  on  which  it  was  to 


wouk  in  the  pulpit.  309 

be  delivered,  rising  early  for  that  purpose ;  but  the  ser- 
mon had  often  been  carefully  thought  out  during  the 
preceding  week. 

The  sermons  of  the  last  fourteen  years  of  his  life 
were  printed  regularly,  as  they  were  delivered.  A  great 
number  of  those  preached  earlier  were  also  printed. 
There  are  five  collected  volumes  of  sermons  :  "  The 
Hour  which  Cometh,"  "Go  up  Higher,"  '^  Every-Day 
Eeligion,"  "  Common-Sense  in  lleligion,"  and  "  Self- 
Culture." 

It  is  to  be  observed  in  them  that  he  addressed  him- 
self simply  and  directly  to  the  subject  in  hand,  without 
introduction  in  the  shape  of  apology,  or  explanation  of 
his  reasons  for  dealing  with  it,  and  his  sermons  con- 
tained none  of  the  "  fine  passages  "  which  are  the  terror 
of  the  judicious,  when  the  judicious  are  among  the  lis- 
teners. 

His  church  was  filled  with  hearers,  who  may  be  de- 
scribed under  two  classes,  wholly  distinct  from  each 
other.  First,  there  was  the  "  old  line  "  of  the  Church 
of  the  Disciples,  a  body  of  worshipers,  recruited  from 
almost  every  class  of  society,  who  were  interested  in 
his  studies  for  the  truth,  and  followed  them  in  the 
order  they  took  in  his  mind.  To  them  there  was  an 
organic  and  vital  connection  between  one  sermon  and 
the  next,  whether  the  sermons  were  announced  as  be- 
longing to  one  series  or  not.  They  were  sorry  to  lose 
any  one  step  in  such  a  series,  and  were  singularly  regu- 
lar in  their  attendance  on  Sundays.  The  fundamental 
princij)le  of  a  "  Free  Church  "  made  it  easy  for  people 
who  had  few  other  social  ties  in  Boston  to  feel  at  home 
in  the  Church  of  the  Disciples,  and  tlie  congregation 
had  probably  a  larger  share  than  is  usual  of  new-comers 
to  the  city,  .who  began  their  attendance  because  at- 
tracted by  its  ready  hosijitality,  and  continued  it  be- 
cause drawn  by  the  sturdy,  straightforward  earnestness 
of  the  preacher,  and  his  entire  indilference  to  popular 
opinion  or  the  arts  of  sensation. 


310  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

The  other  class  of  attendants  were  strangers  visiting 
in  Boston,  and  other  persons,  who  had  read  one  or  many 
of  Mr.  Clarke's  theological  books.  The  readers  of  these 
books,  who  perhaps  had  never  met  with  the  writings  of 
any  other  Unitarian,  naturally  wanted  to  see  and  hear 
him,  and  they  found  their  way  on  Sunday  morning  to 
the  Church  of  the  Disciples. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  say  how  many  of  his  sermons 
were  printed.  They  were  often  on  practical  subjects 
which  adapted  them  to  the  time,  so  that  reporters  and 
editors  were  glad  to  obtain  the  manuscript,  and  on  his 
part  there  was  not  one  shred  of  literary  vanity  which 
hindered  him  from  giving  a  manuscript  for  publication. 
The  thing  was  to  be  of  use.  If  any  one  wanted  to  ex- 
tend its  usefulness,  that  was  enough.  He  received, 
therefore,  with  satisfaction,  a  proposal  from  Mr.  Parker, 
the  editor  of  the  "  Saturday  Evening  Gazette,"  to  print 
his  sermons  regularly.  This  paper  is  published  on 
Saturday  at  midnight,  or  later,  and  was  for  a  long 
time  the  only  Sunday  paper  in  Boston.  On  the  25th  of 
October,  1873,  the  "  Gazette  "  announced  the  beginning 
of  the  series  which  was  continued  during  the  autumn, 
winter,  and  spring  for  fifteen  years.  There  were  about 
five  hundred  subscribers,  I  have  been  told,  who  took 
the  paper  simply  for  these  sermons.  They  were  read 
aloud,  in  Sunday  services,  as  Mr.  Clarke  had  occasion 
to  know,  in  many  lands. 

From  the  outset  there  was  a  demand  for  the  sermons, 
not  only  from  the  public,  but  from  clergymen  of  other 
denominations.  Almost  every  day's  mail  brought  or- 
ders for  back  sermons,  new  subscriptions  for  the  year, 
and  sums  of  money  with  orders  to  send  the  "  Gazette  " 
to  some  address  named  as  long  as  the  money  would  pay 
for  them. 

Among  the  sermons  published  during  the  last  years 
of  his  life  there  has  been  a  large  demand  for  the  one 
on  "  The  Mind  of  Christ,"  January  22,  1888  ;  for  the 


WORK  IN  THE  PULPIT.  311 

series  on  "The  Unitarian  Faith;"  '' Christ  and  Cliris- 
tianity  ;  "  the  "  Sermon  on  the  Monnt ; "  the  future  life, 
especially  "  The  Old  and  New  View  of  the  Hereafter," 
and  "  Homes  in  Heaven  and  on  Earth  ;  "  and  the  clos- 
ing series  on  "The  Lord's  Prayer." 

The  intended  publication  of  the  sermons  in  the  "  Ga- 
zette "  was  announced  in  these  words  :  "  In  his  denomi- 
nation Mr.  Clarke  is  recognized  as,  perhaps  more  than 
any  other,  the  leading  mind,  and  is  held  in  high  estima- 
tion by  all  classes  of  Christians.  What  he  says  possesses 
value  and  interest  to  a  large  portion  of  the  community. 
The  stand  he  has  recently  taken  in  favor  of  indeijen- 
dence,  manliness,  and  purity  in  the  politics  of  the  na- 
tion has  also  much  enhanced  his  reputation,  and  will 
have  the  effect  to  increase  the  importance  attached  to 
his  pulpit  utterances.  The  sermons  will  be  continued 
from  week  to  week  in  our  columns.  .  .  .  The  subject 
of  to-day's  sermon,  which  is  the  first  of  the  series,  will 
be  '  Possessed  with  a  Devil.'  " 

More  than  five  hundred  sermons  were  published  in 
this  series,  the  last  being  the  last  sermon  on  the  Lord's 
Prayer,  which  was  read  to  the  Church  of  the  Disciples, 
May  27,  1888,  by  Mr.  Darwin  E.  Ware. 

When  ]\Ir.  Clarke  was  in  Boston  he  regularly  called 
at  the  printing-office  and  read  his  own  proof,  seldom 
altering  a  word.^  All  the  printers  whose  acquaintance 
he  thus  made  personally  were  fond  of  him,  "indeed 
they  loved  him.  They  took  pleasure  in  obeying  his 
lightest  wish,  and  never  forgot  or  neglected  it.  He 
liked  to  talk,  and  sometimes  to  tell  stories.  His  story 
of  Booth  and  the  pigeons  is  remembered  in  tlie  i)riiit- 
ing-office.     His  talk  there  on  dt\ath  was  always  iiiter- 

^  After  he  had  written  anythiiif;,  a  Sfrnion,  a  h'cturi'.  an  «'s>viy.  an 
article  for  a  niag'azine  or  newspaper,  lie  never  wished  to  jjo  over  it 
again  to  improve  the  form.  lie  disliked  to  K'ive  his  time  to  a  (jnes- 
tion  of  mere  literary  excellonee.  The  moment  he  ha<l  finished  what 
he  had  to  say  he  wanted  to  turn  his  thoughts  tu  Hunie  new  work. 


312  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

esting,  courageous,  and  consoling,"  He  would  not  have 
his  sermons  printed  in  type  as  small  as  nonpareil.  He 
said  he  respected  old  eyes  as  well  as  young  ones.  He 
wanted  to  have  one  fixed  place,  the  same  in  every  is- 
sue. If  any  poetry  were  to  be  placed  in  the  corner 
above  the  sermon,  he  sometimes  selected  it  himself. 

He  insisted  that  no  advertisements  of  w^hiskey  or 
champagne  should  be  placed  under  his  sermons,  or  in 
the  columns  next  to  them,  and  sometimes  told  the  edi- 
tors of  other  "  antipathies,"  which  he  hoped  might  be 
respected  in  the  "  make-up." 

His  expectation  and  wish  in  early  life  were  to  lift  the 
world  around  him  by  his  work  as  a  preacher.  And,  as 
has  been  said,  the  work  in  which  to  the  end  of  his  life 
he  was  most  interested  was  that  of  the  Church  of  the 
Disciples.  But,  while  his  success  as  a  preacher  was 
marked,  he  was  known  as  an  author  by  thousands  who 
never  saw  his  face  or  heard  his  voice.  And  the  reader 
knows  how  many  of  the  great  needs  of  his  time  and 
country  acknowledged  the  help  which  his  prudent  coun- 
sel, his  unflinching  courage,  and  his  daily  effort  gave 
them. 

In  his  book  called  "  Self-Culture  "  he  has  related  the 
following  incident :  — 

"  When  I  lived  in  the  West,  there  came  a  phrenologist 
to  the  town,  and  examining  the  heads  of  all  the  clergy- 
men in  the  place  found  us  all  deficient  in  the  organ  of 
reverence.  More  than  that,  we  all  admitted  that  the 
fact  was  so  ;  that  we  were  not,  any  of  us,  specially  gifted 
with  natural  piety  or  love  of  worship.  Then  he  said, 
^  You  have  all  mistaken  your  calling.  You  ought  not 
to  be  ministers.'  But  I,  for  one,  protested  against  that 
sentence,  for  I  knew  that  though  I  had  no  natural  ten- 
dency to  worship  or  pray,  I  had  come  by  experience  to 
know  that  I  could  not  live  without  prayer.  Though  I 
did  not  pray  from  sentiment  and  feeling,  I  was  able  to 
pray  from  conviction  and  faith." 


WORK  IN   THE  PULPIT.  813 

*  Some  of  his  friends  and  liearers  have  recorded  the 
impression  made  upon  them  by  his  preaching  at  differ- 
ent periods  of  his  ministry. 

^Lirgaret  Fuller,  who  in  1838  was  teaching  a  school 
in  Providence,  Khode  Island,  wrote  in  her  diary  on 
November  25  of  that  year  :  "  My  friend  of  other  years, 
J.  F.  C,  has  been  here  and  preached;  he  will  be  here 
two  more  Sundays.  I  rejoice  in  it,  both  for  the  pleas- 
ure of  his  conversation  and  his  preaching. 

"  He  is  a  preacher.  In  the  first  place  he  is  really  a 
Christian,  revering  w^hat  is  above,  loving  and  pitying 
what  is  below,  and  in  manly  sympathy,  esteem  and 
tolerance  meeting  what  is  on  a  level  with  him.  Ho 
does  not  appeal  to  the  love  of  beauty,  to  the  fancy,  or 
the  restless  intellect.  His  style  is  somewhat  un])ol- 
ished;  his  sentences  somewhat  deficient  in  natund 
flow ;  no  exquisite  sentiment  exquisitely  expressed  fills 
the  ear  and  melts  the  heart.  He  convinces  rather  than 
persuades.  In  '  simple  force  direct '  he  challenges  re- 
spect and  confidence  from  his  hearer,  who  at  once  be- 
lieves that  this  man  will  never  palsy  his  own  tongue,  or 
seal  up  the  ear  of  another  by  the  utterance  of  unfelt 
truth.  J.'s  mind  is,  I  think,  wholly  practical  in  its 
tendency.  It  is  quite  a  strong  mind,  an  aspiring  mind, 
an  active,  and  becoming  a  clear  mind,  but  its  cry  is  for 
*  action,  action,  action.'  I  never  heard  better  prayers 
than  his.     He  really  prays  in  church." 

John  A.  Andrew,  after  hearing  him  i)reach  for  the 
first  time,  in  1841,  wrote  to  a  friend  :  — 

"I  have  forgotten  to  give  you  my  im])ressi()ns  of 
Rev.  J.  F.  Clarke.  In  the  first  place  I  liked  the  flavor 
of  the  vian.  He  carried  his  service  as  though  he  felt  it 
a  good  thing  to  worship  God  and  wanted  tlie  people  to 
feel  the  same.  I  liked  his  sermon  thoroughly.  It  was 
upon  well-seasoned  speech.  '  Let  your  sjmu'cIi  be  always 
with  grace,  seasoned  with  salt,  that  ye  may  know  how 
ye  ought  to  answer  every  man.'     And  the  sermon  was 


314  DIARY  AND  COBRESPONDENCE. 

itself  a  good  illustration  of  the  theme.  Its  spirit  was 
Christian  to  the  core,  and  did  not  disturb  my  Orthodox 
conscience  in  the  least.  I  think  I  felt  the  catholicity 
of  the  man  :  he  did  not  say  a  word  that  could  be  fairly 
understood  to  touch  any  man's  honest  convictions  un- 
gently.  The  whole  service  I  enjoyed  heartily  ;  and  not 
the  least  agreeable  experience  was  the  being  invited  to 
seats  at  least  half-a-dozen  times  while  I  was  waiting 
for  my  friend  at  the  entrance." 

In  1869,  a  young  man  who  had  just  graduated  from 
the  Cambridge  divinity  school,  and  who  has  ever  since 
been  a  faithful  and  efficient  minister,  wrote  :  — 

..."  And,  dear  Mr.  Clarke,  will  you  let  me  tell  you 
how  much  the  services  of  the  Church  of  the  Disciples 
have  helped  and  cheere4  me  during  the  past  two  years. 
I  could  not  attend  as  frequently  as  I  wished,  yet  I 
never  came  without  being  made  truer  to  myself  and 
God. 

"  I  have  so  many  pleasant  memories  in  connection 
with  your  Sunday-school  that  it  would  have  been  very 
pleasant  to  be  with  them  once  more.  ...  It  always 
gave  me  new  inspiration  and  strength  to  see  how  de- 
votedly some  of  those  blessed  teachers  labored  for  the 
little  children. 

"  And  I  wish  to  say  also  that  although  I  have  felt  it 
my  duty  to  disagree  with  you  on  some  points  of  theol- 
ogy, yet  I  have  always  listened  to  your  preaching  with 
genuine  interest  and  benefit.  You  have  been  very  help- 
ful to  me,  and  I  feel  regret  that  my  anticipated  removal 
is  to  take  me  away  from  a  church  whose  members  I 
love  and  whose  minister  has  brought  me  nearer  to  hu- 
manity, and  so,  nearer  to  God." 

This  characteristic  incident  is  related  by  Eev.  J.  W. 
Chadwick :  — 

"  I  have  many  pleasant  memories  of  Dr.  Clarke,  and 
one  which,  I  am  sure,  is  all  ni}^  own.  Just  before  the 
*  Battle  of  Syracuse,'  as  Mr.  Abbot  calls  it,  I  met  Dr. 


WOEE  IX  THE  PULPIT.  315 

Clarke  at  Albany,  in  the  early  morning.  There  was  an 
hour  or  more  to  spare  before  the  train  started  west- 
ward. '  Let  us  take  a  walk/  he  said  ;  and  we  strolled 
away  together,  and  in  a  short  time  came  upon  a  little 
conventicle  in  which  a  religious  service  was  going  on. 
We  went  in,  and  found  a  company  of  twenty  or  thirty 
people,  looking  somewhat  dreary  and  depressed,  a  very 
humble  set  of  worshipers,  of  what  special  sect  or  creed 
I  do  not  know,  nor  why  met  at  such  an  early  hour. 
The  talk  was  very  poor,  with  much  iteration  of  the  con- 
ventional phrases  of  the  conference  meeting.  Wlien 
there  came  a  pause  Dr.  Clarke  stood  up  and  asked  if  he 
might  say  a  few  words.  Permission  was  granted,  and 
he  moved  forward  till  he  faced  the  little  company. 
Then  he  spoke  for  about  ten  minutes  with  a  sweetness, 
a  tenderness,  a  serious  beauty  that  I  never  shall  forget. 
He  said  in  conclusion,  *  We  have  never  met  before,  and 
it  is  not  likely  we  shall  ever  meet  again,  but  I  am  glad 
to  have  taken  part  in  your  meeting  and  to  have  spoken 
to  you  a  few  words.'  We  went  out.  I  had  almost 
heard  the  people  listen  as  he  spoke.  He  made  their 
faces  shine." 

The  following  friendly  tribute  is  from  Rev.  8.  W. 
Bush  :  — 

"1  knew  him  for  more  than  forty  years,  but  was 
brought  into  closer  relationshi])  with  him  when  editing 
the  '  Christian  Register.'  Then  I  loved  and  revered 
him  more  and  more.  For  years  he  -was  one  of  our  regu- 
lar contributors  ;  but  we  never  could  induce  him  to 
write  unless  he  had  something  to  say.  Even  when  liis 
own  opinions  were  controverted  he  would  only  re]ily 
when  it  was  necessary  to  put  the  subject  in  a  clearer 
light.  He  was  one  of  the  easiest  of  public  speakers  to 
report,  because  his  thought  was  arranged  in  logical  or- 
der, and  presented  with  ])oint  and  directness.  He  liad 
what  Matthew  Arnold  calls  '  lucidity.'  He  threw  li.L^lit 
on  the  subject  in  hand,  and  with  sentences  easily  under- 
stood. 


316  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

"  He  was  one  of  the  fairest  men  in  the  discussion  of 
a  subject  I  ever  knew.  This  was  still  more  evident  in 
his  private  judgment  of  an  opponent.  We  had  many- 
illustrations  of  this  in  the  editorial  office." 

FROM    KEY.    THOMAS    L.    ELIOT. 

I  recollect  once  going  into  a  conference  meeting  at 
Saratoga,  after  traveling  alone  all  the  way  from  Port- 
land, Oregon.  The  first  words  I  heard  were  from  Mr. 
Clarke.  He  was  speaking  of  how  people  orphan  them- 
selves, and  forget  that  God  is  their  Father.  He  said, 
"I  met  a  lady  the  other  day  who  began  to  pour  her 
troubles  bitterly  into  my  ears.  She  had  no  one  to  help 
her ;  no  one  understood  her.  I  asked  her,  '  Have  you 
not  forgotten  your  best  friend  ?  Have  you  told  your 
troubles  to  God  ?  ' "  I  have  never  forgotten  the  tone  in 
which  Mr.  Clarke  spoke  ;  the  reverence  and  assurance 
seemed  to  take  all  loneliness  out  of  the  world,  and 
make  the  hour  a  real  meeting  of  the  spirit  of  Trust  and 
Grace  ;  tears  ran  down  my  cheeks,  and  some  one  bC' 
gan  the  hymn,  — 

*'  Love  for  all,  and  can  it  be, 
Can  I  hope  it  is  for  me  ?  " 

FROM  A  CHARGE  AT  AN  ORDINATIOX. 

.  .  .  We  recognize  the  fact  that  we  belong  not  only 
to  the  finite,  but  the  infinite,  —  that  around  the  world 
of  time  is  that  of  eternity^ ;  we  wish  to  root  our  lives  in 
the  deep  soil  of  infinite  ideas.  .  .  . 

"  Come,"  they  say  to  you,  "  come  and  be  the  friend  of 
our  souls.  Seek  for  truth,  and  help  us  to  seek  for  it. 
We  have  nothing  to  draw  with,  and  the  well  is  deep  ; 
help  us  to  obtain  that  living  water.  The  world  is  too 
much  for  us  ;  we  are  too  much  away  from  God.  Oh,  if 
thou  canst  lead  us  into  that  state  of  nearness  to  God  in 
which  he  shall  be  to  us  as  a  father,  and  obedience  to 
him  the  law  of  our  life,  the  friendship  formed  to-day 
will  be  of  all  others  the  most  blessed  !  " 


WORK  IN  THE  PULPIT.  317 

Truth  is  the  food  of  the  soul,  thought  is  the  garment 
of  life ;  but  "  the  life  is  more  than  meat,  and  the 
body  than  raiment ; "  and  a  man  whose  aim  is  high,  and 
his  heart  in  it,  shall  find  his  hearers  fed  as  are  the 
birds  of  the  air,  not  b}^  man,  but  by  God.  .  .  . 

Expect  to  see  men  born  again  under  your  preaching ; 
expect  this,  and  you  will  witness  it.  But  be  patient,  — 
be  very  patient.  You  do  not  know  how  much  is  to  be 
done,  and  how  much  God  is  doing.  Be  then  both  hope- 
ful and  patient,  expecting  everj^thing  that  God  is  able  to 
give,  satisfied  with  anything  that  he  chooses  to  give. 

I  charge  you  to  be  a  builder.  You  might  acquire 
more  notoriety  by  pulling  down,  but  you  will  do  the 
most  good  by  building  up.  .  .  .  While  you  are  a  re- 
former, cultivate  the  moderation  which  avoids  ultraism, 
not  by  neutrality,  not  by  lukewarmness,  not  by  taking 
neither  side,  but  by  taking  a  hearty  interest  in  both  sides 
of  truth.  ...  It  is  easy  to  see  and  denounce  the  ex- 
travagances and  iniquities  of  others,  but  to  go  before 
them,  showing  them  a  more  excellent  way,  —  this  is 
harder. 

Finally,  my  brother,  I  charge  you  to  study  and  to 
preach  Christ.  You  will  find  God  in  nature  and  his- 
tory ;  you  will  find  God  in  the  intuitions  of  eternal 
truth  which  move  your  own  soul.  .  .  .  But  except  you 
also  preach  God  in  Christ,  there  is  a  large  portion  of 
human  experience  before  which  you  will  stand  helpless. 
To  the  sinner  God  comes  with  pardon  and  comfort  only 
in  that  manifestation  of  love  which  has  beamed  upon 
the  world  from  the  cross  of  Calvary.  Learn  to  know 
and  to  preach  Christ  as  the  friend  of  the  sinner,  as  a 
manifestation  of  God's  love  to  the  despairing  prodigal. 
Announce  a  present  Saviour,  a  present  salvation,  to  those 
on  whose  conscience  the  burden  of  sin  lies  heavy,  and 
you  will  find  that  your  words  will  go  from  your  lips 
freighted  witli  a  power  of  persuasion  which  will  soften 
the  hardest  heart  and  bend  the  most  stubborn  will. 


318  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

On  the  evening  of  Febniaiy  28,  1884,  he  spoke  to  the 
students  of  the  Cambridge  divinity  school  on  "The 
Evolution  of  the  Minister."  Near  the  close  of  this  ad- 
dress he  said :  — 

Work  grows  more  interesting  all  the  time.  The 
work  of  the  Christian  minister  becomes  so  interesting 
that  he  hates  the  idea  of  dying.  .  .  .  We  always  have 
a  great  deal  more  to  say,  a  great  deal  more  to  do,  and 
take  more  interest  in  saying  and  doing. 

The  greatest  possible  blessing  to  the  minister  is  to 
believe  that  whenever  a  duty  comes  to  him  there  is  a 
power  somewhere  to  help  him  to  do  it ;  that  there  is 
a  great  fountain  of  spiritual  life  ready  to  flow  into  his 
soul  whenever  he  really  needs  it.  I  think  we  have  a 
right  to  believe  this.  If  a  duty  comes  to  us  which  we 
feel  unable  to  perform,  then  is  the  time  to  say,  "  I  can- 
not do  it  without  help ;  but  because  the  Lord  has  sent 
me  this  work  he  will  give  me  wisdom  and  strength  and 
love  for  it."  We  should  never  be  discouraged;  we 
should  be  able  to  say  with  the  apostle,  "  When  I  am 
weak,  then  I  am  strong." 

FROM  THE  "  MONTHLY  JOURXAL,"  ON  THE  "EDUCATION" 
OF  A  CHURCH." 

The  business  and  work  of  a  church  is  to  grow ;  to 
grow  up  in  all  things  into  its  head,  who  is  Christ.  It  is 
a  delightful  work,  than  which  there  can  be  nothing  more 
satisfying.  "  The  most  beautiful  of  lives,"  says  Lord 
Bacon,  "  each  day  to  find  one's  self  somewhat  better." 
Where  there  is  growth,  mental  and  moral,  all  the  evils 
of  life  disappear  ;  the  grand  sense  of  progress  abolishes 
them  all.  This  destroys  the  evil  of  age,  for  what  if  the 
body  grow  old,  since  the  heart  and  thought  continue 
young;  this,  the  evil  of  poverty,  since  the  soul  is 
growing  rich,  and  is  able  to  make  others  so ;  this,  the 
evil  of  sickness,  since  what  is  the  harm  of  sickness  while 


WOUK  IN   THE  PULPIT.  319 

health  reigns  within  ;  this,  of  solitude,  since  tlie  mind 
is  compassed  about  with  a  cloud  of  companions  ;  this, 
of  bereavement,  since  to  the  open  eye  of  faith  our  loved 
ones  have  only  gone  before  where  we  are  following.  A 
church  with  an  advancing  life,  deepening  its  convic- 
tions every  year,  enlarging  its  knowledge,  growing  more 
generous,  more  loving,  more  full  of  good  works,  tilled 
with  a  deeper  humilit}^  while  it  ascends  into  a  loftier 
piety,  like  the  lofty  cedars  of  Dryden,  which 

..."  as  far  upward  shoot 
As  to  the  nether  heavens  they  drive  the  root," — 

such  a  church  would  deserve  the  name  adopted  of  late 
by  a  religious  society,  and  might  truly  call  itself  a  church 
of  "  Progressive  Friends."  Progress  with  friendship  — 
what  more  could  one  desire  ? 

FROM  A  LETTER  TO  A  YOUNG  MINISTER,  WHO  HAD 
ASKED  HIS  ADVICE  ABOUT  MINISTERIAL  W^ORK  IN 
THE    W^EST. 

Pastoral  work  is  that  which  tells.  If  a  church  is  to 
be  built  up  strong,  united,  active,  it  is  by  action  on  in- 
dividuals, not  upon  congregations.  Preaching  is  their 
baptism ;  pastoral  ^v-prk  is  their  confirmation.  The 
ceremony  of  confirmation  in  the  Episcopal  Church  is 
only  the  outward  sign  of  a  great  reality ;  the  reality 
is  the  change  by  which  a  hearer  of  the  word  is  changed 
into  a  doer. 

Do  not  complain  of  being  persecuted.  Persecution  in 
our  days  is  a  joke.  I  never  feel  ashamed  of  being  a 
Unitarian,  except  when  I  hear  Unitarians  comphiin  of 
being  persecuted. 

Let  negation  be  for  the  sake  of  subsequent  affirma- 
tion. Do  not  let  denying  end  in  denial;  but  always 
pass  on  to  something  positive. 

Treat  reforms  frankly  and  kindly  in  the  pulpit  as 
you  would  in  the  parlor.     Do  not  be  savage  to  show 


320  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

your  independence.  Kegard  those  who  differ  from  you 
as  your  friends,  not  as  opponents  to  be  refuted  and  put 
down. 

The  end  of  Christian  preaching  is  to  make  men  abound 
in  hope  through  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  It  is 
not  to  make  them  abound  in  opinions  through  the  power 
of  argument,  nor  to  abound  in  anxiety  through  the 
power  of  the  law,  nor  to  abound  in  self-satisfaction 
through  the  power  of  rhetorical  flatteries  ;  but  it  is  to 
make  them  abound  in  hope  through  the  power  of  the 
Holy  Ghost.  It  is  to  bring  them  to  God,  and  make 
them  feel  his  divine  nearness  ;  to  lift  them  out  of  dark- 
ness into  light ;  to  enable  them  to  feel  their  sins  for- 
given, and  their  hearts  full  of  peace  and  joy. 

FROM    HIS    SERMONS. 

This  is  a  very  simple  test  of  genuine  faith  in  Christ. 
If  you  have  faith  enough  in  Jesus  as  the  Christ  of  God 
to  enable  you  to  undertake  his  work  of  saving  your  fel- 
low-men from  sin  and  misery  here  and  hereafter,  you 
may  be  sure  that  you  have  the  true  faith.  But  if  you 
have  not  the  courage  to  do  this  work,  then,  though  you 
j)reach  faith  in  Christ  as  the  Omnipotent  God,  and  utter 
that  doctrine  with  the  tongue  of  men  and  angels,  yet 
you  prove  by  your  own  cowardice  in  the  presence  of 
evil  that  you  have  no  real  faith  in  him  as  an  actual 
Saviour  of  actual  men  .and  women. 

Do  you  know  of  any  case  of  vice  or  sorrow  which  it 
seems  almost  impossible  to  relieve  or  cure  ?  Go  and 
see  if  God  will  not  work  a  miracle  through  your  mind 
and  heart,  giving  your  actions  and  words  a  power  not 
their  own,  so  that  you  can  make  the  blind  see,  the  lame 
walk,  and  raise  up  the  dead.  You  must  go  in  faith, 
however,  trusting  entirel}^  that  if  the  thing  ought  to  be 
done  God  will  give  you  strength  to  do  it.  You  must 
go  also  in  the  spirit  of  prayer ;  not,  necessarily,  with 
the  prayer  of  words,  but  with  that  essential   prayer 


WORK  IN   THE  PULPIT.  321 

which  consists  in  keeping  one's  self  in  a  condition  of 
faith  and  hope,  leaning  on  God. 

Of  all  the  holy  things  which  God  has  made,  the  most 
holy  is  man  himself.  He  is  the  temple  of  God;  for 
the  spirit  of  God  dwells  in  him,  and  wherever  a  human 
being  stands,  there  stands  something  greater  than  the 
Temple  at  Jerusalem.  God  has  made  man  in  his  own 
image,  with  power  of  insight,  capacity  of  affection,  en- 
ergy of  action.  The  mysterious  depths  and  heights  of 
his  nature  we  do  not  yet  half  understand.  His  expe- 
rience in  this  world  has  meanings  and  objects  of  which, 
as  yet,  we  have  hardly  an  idea.  His  destiny  in  the 
other  world,  the  depths  of  being  which  he  shall  sound, 
the  heights  of  knowledge  which  he  shall  climb,  eternity 
alone  can  reveal. 

The  churches  keep  alive  this  sense  of  the  greatness 
of  humanity.  ...  If  I  did  not  go  to  church  for  any- 
thing else,  I  should  go  for  this.  The  sermon  might  be 
stupid ;  then  I  should  not  listen  to  it.  The  prayers 
might  not  suit  me  ;  then  I  should  pass  them  by.  The 
music  might  grate  on  my  ear  ;  I  should  try  not  to  hear 
it.  One  would  stand  before  me  greater  than  the  Tem- 
ple ;  greater  than  its  liturgy,  its  prayers,  its  priests,  its 
ritual,  —  my  brother  man,  bowed  before  my  Father, 
God. 

That  which  makes  this  earth  seem  solid  is  not  the 
rocks  and  mountains  that  are  in  it,  but  the  love  that  is 
in  it.  Love,  joining  hands  with  faith  and  work,  makes 
our  life  rich  and  full.  These  three,  neither  of  them 
alone ;  work  which  is  done  in  love,  love  which  is  born 
of  faith.  And  it  is  a  blessed  thing  that  the  longer  we 
live  thus  the  more  beautiful  the  world  becomes,  the 
more  rich  and  precious  our  life  seems.  It  is  the  young 
who  are  oftenest  tired  of  life.     As  we  live  on,  we  seem 


322  DIABY  AND  COBBESPONDENCE.      * 

to  grow  younger,  not  older  ;  we  find  ourselves  coming 
nearer  to  God  and  man ;  we  grow  more  like  little  cliil- 
dren  in  our  hearts.  Beautiful  is  age  wlien  it  does  not 
become  hard  and  cold,  but  grows  evermore  full  of  faith 
and  love.  The  old  man  looks  backward  through  a  life 
in  which  he  has  learned  to  know  the  wonders  of  na- 
ture ;  to  know  the  heart  and  thoughts  of  many  varieties 
of  human  beings ;  in  which  he  has  done  faithfully  his 
part  in  the  world  in  his  own  place.  He  looks  back  over 
the  long  perspective,  and  he  sees  how  kindly  God  has 
led  him  on  ;  how  he  has  been  taught  by  disappointment 
and  success ;  how  he  has  gone  deep  into  his  own  heart, 
gathered  up  wisdom,  become  truly  free  by  self-control 
and  self-direction ;  how  he  has  ceased  to  think  of  God 
as  Power  and  Law  only,  and  come  to  think  of  him  as 
Friend  and  Father.  And  he  wonders  that  he  ever  could 
have  been  weary  of  life  ;  he  feels  the  infinite  riches  of 
the  universe,  and  thanks  God,  in  the  depths  of  a  happy 
heart,  for  the  gift  of  existence. 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 

VARIED    ACTIVITIES. 

1865-1880. 

The  war  had  broken  up  every  man's  plan  of  life. 
Whatever  other  obligations  he  might  have,  his  duties 
to  his  country,  if  he  were  a  man  of  honor,  took  prece- 
dence of  all  others.  And  with  Mr.  Clarke,  as  with  the 
rest  of  his  countrymeti,  whatever  work  might  occupy 
him  during  that  period,  it  was  carried  on  with  the  un- 
derlying aim  of  making  it  serve  his  country's  welfare. 
But  when  the  war  was  over,  the  interests  to  which  he 
had  given  his  time  in  previous  years  were  continued  on 
a  larger  scale  than  ever,  until  he  began  to  feel  the  pres- 
sure of  years  a  little  before  his  death.  His  diaries 
speak  of  work  in  the  cause  of  education ;  of  frequent 
visits  to  the  Normal  Schools  at  Framingham,  Bridge- 
water,  and  Salem ;  of  meetings  of  the  Board  of  Educa- 
tion, meetings  of  the  Freedman's  Aid  Society,  meet- 
ings of  the  board  of  overseers  of  Harvard  University ; 
of  lectures  to  the  Cambridge  divinity  students ;  of  his- 
tory classes  in  his  own  church ;  of  Sunday  evening  lec- 
tures ;  of  Wednesday  evening  lectures  on  tlie  A])Ostle 
Paul ;  these  entries  and  many  others  show  that  his  life 
was  a  busy  one. 

If  one  can  say  it  good-naturedly,  it  is  fair  to  say  that 
with  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves,  some  of  the  old 
war-horses  of  tlie  anti-slavery  movement  found  tlicm- 
selves  at  a  loss  as  to  their  own  })ersonal  future.  Tliey 
were  glad  the  slaves  were  free,  but  they  did  not  know 


324  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

what  they  were  to  do  next.  So  the  fond  mother  of  an 
only  child  is  glad  when  her  daughter  is  married  to  the 
man  she  loves  ;  but  all  the  same,  when  the  bride  is  gone, 
she  finds  her  own  home  very  empty  and  her  days  long. 
Cynical  Philistines,  therefore,  would  tell  us  that  the 
old  anti-slavery  leaders  looked  round  in  their  hunger 
for  a  new  philanthropy,  and  picked  up  woman  suffrage. 
But  no  man  can  say  this  of  Mr.  Clarke.  He  is  on 
record  as  committed  to  this  cause  from  a  very  early 
period,  and  his  interest  in  it  belongs  to  the  whole  sys- 
tem of  his  life. 

Colonel  Higginson  has  kindly  given  us  a  careful 
sketch  of  his  relations  to  this  reform. 

J.    F.    C.    AND    WOMAN    SUFFRAGE. 

Every  one  who  was  brought  into  intercourse  with 
James  Freeman  Clarke  in  the  woman  suffrage  move- 
ment must  recall  his  presence  with  pleasure,  partly 
from  the  important  service  he  rendered  to  it,  but  more 
because  his  action  on  this  point  was,  like  all  else  he 
did,  the  simple  outgrowth  of  his  peculiarly  straightfor- 
ward and  equable  nature.  For  instance,  he  always 
rested  its  main  argument  not  on  the  assumed  superi- 
ority of  woman,  —  an  argument  which  proves  too  much, 
yet  into  which  so  clear-headed  a  man  as  Theodore  Par- 
ker conspicuously  fell,  —  but  on  the  simple  ground  of 
her  equality  of  gifts  and  needs  with  man,  and  hence 
her  right  to  be  represented  in  government  equally  with 
Mm.  If,  as  Theodore  Parker  maintained  in  his  "  Dis- 
course of  AYoman,"  the  voice  of  women  on  all  subjects 
will  be  incomparably  superior  to  that  of  men,  the  ques- 
tion will  naturally  arise  whether  it  is  better  to  risk 
demoralizing  a  creature  so  elevated,  by  admitting  her 
to  a  sphere  where  man  has,  perhaps,  been  lowered.  But 
if  we  take  the  ground,  as  Dr.  Clarke  was  accustomed  to 
do,  that  she  is  simply  to  be  viewed  as  a  human  being, 
with  the  shortcomings,  risks,  and  limitations  of  a  human 


VARIED  ACTIVITIES.  325 

being,  and  that  she  will  undoiibtecUy  make  mistakes 
and  exhibit  inconsistencies  as  a  voter,  then  the  case  is 
a  great  deal  stronger. 

I  remember  that  this  strong,  common-sense  quality 
of  his  mind  was  once  strikingly  shown  in  a  si)eech 
made,  I  think,  at  a  Washington  convention  in  1871. 
Some  question  had  been  raised  as  to  how  women  would 
be  likely  to  vote  if  enfranchised,  and  he  undertook  in 
his  accustomed  straightforward  way  to  answer  it.  He 
explained  that  no  such  anticipations  were  at  all  neces- 
sary to  the  argument,  which  rested  on  natural  right  or 
recognized  need.  He  pointed  out,  also,  the  difficulty 
of  prophesying  as  to  any  newly  enfranchised  class. 
''  But,"  he  said,  in  substance,  "  there  are  a  few  things 
which  can  safely  be  predicted."  Then  it  w'ould  have 
been  natural  to  expect  him  to  go  on  by  lauding  the  ele- 
vated qualities  of  women  and  showing  how  admirably 
they  w^ould  vote,  as  if  by  intuition,  when  they  got  the 
opportunity.  Not  at  all.  He  said,  amid  general  atten- 
tion, "The  first  visible  result  of  w^omen's  voting  will 
probably  be  a  great  increase  of  majorities  in  all  elec- 
tions. The  reason  is  plain.  Women,  being  new  to  pol- 
itics, will  very  largely  imbibe  their  first  opinions  from 
their  fathers,  brothers,  husbands,  or  pastors.  A  few, 
from  independent  thought  or  even  from  natural  con- 
trariety, will  vote  against  these  advisers,  but  the  bulk 
of  women  will  vote  wath  them.  Hence,  at  the  first 
elections,  wherever  there  has  before  been  a  Kepublican 
majority  of  fifty,  there  will  be  likely  to  be  a  Kepublican 
majority  of  a  hundred.  Wherever,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  was  a  Democratic  majority  of  a  hundred,  there 
will  now,  very  likely,  be  one  of  two  liundred.  If  there 
is  any  especial  local  or  tomporar}-  excitement,  among 
the  men,  the  new  voters  will  be  ai)t  to  throw  themselves 
into  it,  with  the  ardor  of  their  sex,  and  will  swell 
the  majority  very  greatly,  one  way  or  the  other.  But 
this  will  be  temporary,  and  women  will  soon  learn  to 


326  DIAEY  AND  COBEESPONDENCE. 

vote  according  to  their  own  individual  judgment,  as 
men  do." 

I  have  stated  all  this  in  substance,  as  well  as  I  can, 
but  the  point  was  then  wholly  new  to  me,  and  new 
points  were  rather  uncommon  in  that  discussion,  for  those 
of  us  who  had  been  long  in  it ;  so  that  it  impressed  me 
very  much,  and  I  am  sure  of  having  retained  the  essen- 
tial features  of  the  statement.  And  any  one  who  studies 
the  history  of  the  vote  of  Boston  women  on  the  school 
question,  for  instance,  last  year  and  this,  will  already 
find  a  striking  illustration  of  Dr.  Clarke's  foresight. 
The  vote  last  year  had  the  character  of  a  crusade,  and 
was  essentially  the  carrying  out  by  women  of  a  move- 
ment initiated,  wisely  or  otherwise,  by  men ;  whereas 
already,  as  it  seems  to  an  outside  observer,  those  same 
women  are  voting  more  discriminatingly  and  are  apply- 
ing their  own  judgments  to  the  views  of  their  pastors 
and  their  husbands. 

I  remember  in  connection  with  that  same  convention 
an  admirable  instance  of  Dr.  Clarke's  sensible  and  good- 
natured  way  of  dealing  with  vexed  questions.  The  con- 
vention took  place  during  what  has  always  been  known 
as  the  "  Woodhull  period "  of  the  agitation ;  and  the 
feeling  of  the  local  advocates  of  woman  suffrage  in 
Washington  was  strongly  enlisted  in  favor  of  Mrs. 
Woodhull  and  her  methods,  to  which  the  organization 
which  we  represented  was  quite  opposed.  On  coming 
to  the  hall  where  the  convention  was  to  be  held,  we 
found  that  the  representatives  of  the  Woodhull  party 
had  practically  taken  possession  of  the  approach  to  the 
hall,  and  had  a  table  where  their  documents  were  being 
sold  and  distributed,  while  the  seats  within  the  hall 
were  already  flooded  with  their  publications.  All  re- 
monstrance was  in  vain  ;  it  only  increased  the  excite- 
ment ;  and  some  of  the  members  had  begun  to  talk  of 
appealing  to  the  police  for  protection,  when  Dr.  Clarke 
arrived,  and,  on   hearing    the    grievance    stated,    said 


VARIED  ACTIVITIES.  327 

serenely,  "  I  think  we  had  better  take  no  action  about  it. 
If  you  will  let  me  explain  the  matter  to  the  audience,  1 
think  that  I  can  easily  make  it  understood."  Accord- 
ingly, soon  after  the  meeting  was  opened,  he  got  up  and 
said,  in  his  usual  clear  and  simple  way,  looking  round 
upon  the  audience,  with  the  utmost  good-nature  beam- 
ing through  his  spectacles,  words  like  these  :  "  As  the 
officers  of  this  society  came  into  the  hall,  we  noticed 
lying  about  on  the  seats  and  in  the  passage-way  a  great 
many  publications  with  which  we  have  nothing  to  do. 
None  of  us  have  read  them,  and  they  may  contain  some- 
thing exceedingly  good,  of  which  it  would  be  very  un- 
just for  us  to  claim  the  credit.  Or  they  may  contain 
something  that  we  should  disapprove,  and  it  would 
then,  of  course,  be  unjust  to  hold  us  responsible.  At 
any  rate,  they  are  none  of  ours,  and  the  audience  must 
judge  of  them  by  what  they  say,  and  of  us  by  what 
we  say."  This  moderate  and  kindly  statement,  with  a 
little  dash  of  humor  behind  it,  put  the  whole  thing  in  a 
satisfactory  position  and  predisposed  everybody  towards 
a  candid  hearing  ;  so  that  the  convention  went  on  to  a 
triumphant  success,  which  might  have  been  wholly  lost 
if  it  had  begun  with  a  wrangle.  I  have  thought  of  it 
more  than  once,  since  then,  when  I  have  been  at  politi- 
cal conventions  with  Dr.  Clarke,  and  have  seen  him  dis- 
arm opponents  by  some  pithy  and  good-natured  state- 
ment, which  secured  victory,  or  at  least  peace,  without 
the  crossing  of  bayonets.  I  was  not  present  at  the  Ke- 
publican  convention  where  he  helped  to  turn  the  scales 
in  an  important  debate  by  the  remark,  "  A  bolt  is  al- 
ways in  order,"  but  I  suppose  it  to  have  been  an  exer- 
cise of  the  same  fortunate  faculty.  It  is,  as  all  public 
speakers  know,  one  of  the  rarest  of  gifts. 

Dr.  Clarke  always  appeared  to  great  advantage  in 
any  public  discussion.  In  the  quiet  of  his  own  study, 
carried  on  by  strong  convictions,  he  could  sometimes 
work  himself  up  into  quite  a  polemic  vigor,  and  was  not 


328  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

always,  I  think,  quite  just  to  theological  antagonists  ; 
but  whenever  he  was  brought  face  to  face  with  a  man, 
even  if  a  strong  opponent,  his  natural  kindliness  always 
came  uppermost,  and  he  met  controversy  with  imper- 
turbable good-nature.  This  is,  I  think,  opposite  to  the 
common  experience,  for  many  men  who  can  write  mild- 
ly enough  are  carried  beyond  themselves  by  meeting 
their  adversary  face  to  face  on  a  platform.  At  any 
rate.  Dr.  Clarke  was  of  peculiar  value  on  the  woman 
suffrage  platform ;  not  merely  from  his  entire  inde- 
pendence and  courage,  —  qualities  which  came  so  natu- 
rally to  him  that  it  hardly  seems  worth  while  to  speak 
of  them,  —  but  from  his  breadth  of  view,  strong  com- 
mon-sense, good-nature,  and  good  judgment. 
Cambridge,  December  11,  1889. 

The  letters  which  follow  give  a  glimpse  of  the  years 
between  1865  and  1881. 

TO    S.    S.    C. 

February  24,  1865. 
I  shall  send  you  to-morrow  a  copy  of  my  lecture  on 
Mr.  Emerson's  religious  speculations.     I  have  had  it 
printed  in  "  The  Traveller."  .  .  . 

March  6. 

My  time  is  so  taken  up  that  I  do  not  write  more  than 
a  page  before  I  stop  to  do  something  else.  Shall  I  give 
you  my  diary  for  last  week,  exclusive  of  calls,  etc.  ? 
Sunday,  —  Wrote  and  preached  a  sermon  ;  attended  a 
fimeral ;  heard  a  Bible-class  of  twenty  young  men  in 
Church  History  ;  went  to  a  meeting  for  Women's  Hos- 
pital, and  made  a  speech.  Monday,  —  Went  to  meeting 
at  office  of  Charles  G.  Loring,  about  Children's  Aid 
Society ;  to  meeting  about  another  society ;  drove  to 
Brookline  to  see  my  friend,  Mrs.  Wells.  Tuesday,  — 
Saw  engineer  about  making  road  to  Brook  Farm  ;  wrote 
ordination   sermon ;    went  to  Westboro  to   deliver   it. 


VARIED  ACTIVITIES.  329 

Wednesday,  —  Came  from  Westboro  ;  wrote  the  annual 
report  of  the  school  committee  of  West  Roxbury  ;  pre- 
sided two  hours  at  school  committee  ;  presided  at  social 
meeting  of  church  in  evening.  Thursday,  —  Prepared 
lesson  for  class  in  history  till  11.35 ;  to  Boston,  and 
then  to  Newton,  to  see  sick  lady ;  back  to  Boston,  and 
to  history  class  from  3  to  5.  Friday,  —  Spent  some 
time  with  Governor  Andrew  ;  saw  General  Macy  about 
Eliot's  going  into  the  army,  which  he  wishes  to  do  ; 
evening  to  hear  Agassiz'  lecture.  Saturday,  —  Meeting 
of  board  of  overseers  at  State  House,  in  forenoon,  etc. 

Everything  seems  to  come  at  once.  Meeting  of 
board  of  education ;  meetings  of  board  of  overseers, 
of  school  committee,  of  executive  committee  of  A. 
U.  A.,  of  Freedmen's  Aid  Association,  of  Children's 
Aid  Association,  of  Protective  War  Claim  Association ; 
putting  through  a  road  to  Brook  Farm,  which  takes  no 
end  of  talking  ;  visiting  public  schools  ;  writing  report 
on  divinity  school ;  report  of  school  committee  ;  report 
on  modern  languages.  .  .  . 

TO     HIS     DAUGHTER,    WITH    HIS    COPY    OF    "  COLERIDGE, 
SHELLEY,  AND   KEATS." 

June  4,  1865. 
This  book  I  bought  in  1830,  when  I  was  twenty  years 
old.  I  had  just  left  college,  and  entered  the  divinity 
school.  I  was  poor,  and  it  was  a  good  deal  to  me  to 
pay  $7.50  for  a  book.  But  the  American  edition  of  this 
work  had  not  then  been  published,  nor  had  there  been 
then  printed,  even  in  England,  a  complete  edition  of 
either  of  these  poets.  So  I  imported  a  copy  of  this 
Paris  edition,  and  had  a  great  deal  of  pleasure  out  of  it. 
During  the  winter  of  1830-31  I  lived  with  my  mother 
in  Ashburton  Place,  and  after  keeping  school  all  day  at 
Cambridgeport,  I  passed  the  evening  with  my  family  in 
my  brotlier  Sam's  room,  he  being  confined  to  bed  with 
rheumatism.     After  I  went  to  my  room  at  night,  at 


330  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

eleven  or  twelve  o'clock,  I  would  read  awhile  in  this 
book,  and  I  hope  that  you  may  have  as  much  pleasure 
out  of  it  as  I  had  then. 

TO    A.    F.    C. 

December  22,  1867. 

Governor  Andrew's  death  seems  to  make  all  things 
different  to  me.  I  have  had  him  so  long  for  adviser 
and  friend  that  I  miss  him  every  day.  .  .  . 

I  have  begun  my  work  at  Cambridge.  I  find  the 
young  men  very  pleasant,  and  I  get  along  with  them 
very  well.  But  it  takes  a  great  deal  of  time.  I  am  to 
preach  the  election  sermon  next  week,  —  a  great  insti- 
tution. .  .  . 

He  was  always  glad  when  an  invitation  came  to  him 
such  as  he  here  mentions,  because  it  gave  him  a  fitting 
opportunity  to  address  a  large  audience  on  the  subject 
of  national  sins  and  national  obligations.  On  this  occa- 
sion he  spoke  of  the  application  of  the  principles  of 
Christianity  to  legislation  ;  of  the  reform  needed  in  the 
management  of  prisoners  ;  of  the  government  of  chil- 
dren in  the  public  schools  ;  and  also,  at  some  length,  he 
advocated  giving  suffrage  to  women. 

TO    A.    H.    C. 

Pigeon  Cove,  July  15, 1869. 

...  I  have  written  a  note  to  Mr.  Call  to  ask  him  to 
advertise  (for  next  Sunday)  a  sermon  on  "  Woman  Suf- 
frage, in  reply  to  Dr.  Bushnell."  I  hope  you  will  see 
no  objection  to  this.  Some  one  ought  to  say  it,  why 
not  I  ?  I  have  Dr.  Bushnell  here,  and  am  reading  him. 
If  it  rains  more  I  shall  write  my  sermon. 

Cora  and  I  roamed  about  together  a  great  deal  yes- 
terday. I  took  her  out  in  a  boat,  we  went  in  to  swim, 
we  went  into  the  woods,  and  I  read  to  her  from  Mrs. 
Stowe  ;  then  we  went  and  lay  on  the  rocks. 


VARIED  ACTIVITIES.  331 

In  1860,  Mr.  Clarke  went  to  Illinois  to  see  a  total 
eclipse  of  the  sun,  and  afterwards  took  a  trip  over  the 
prairies  with  his  brothers,  three  of  whom  lived  in  the 
West. 

TO    L.    F.    C,    IN    EUROPE. 

Milwaukee,  August  12,  1869. 

As  I  did  not  go  to  Europe  to  see  Switzerland  with 
you,  I  determined  to  go  to  Illinois  to  see  the  total 
eclipse  of  the  sun.  .  .  . 

Burlington  is  in  Iowa,  on  the  Mississippi,  not  far 
from  the  central  line,  and  a  corps  of  astronomers  were 
already  collected  to  observe  the  phenomenon.  A  large 
field  was  assigned  to  them,  and  a  police  force  to  guard 
it ;  and  therein  your  uncle  Sam  and  I  took  our  places 
with  my  telescope,  which  I  carried  out  with  me. 

It  had  rained  for  two  days,  but  the  great  day  came 
without  a  cloud.  Never  was  such  a  field-day  for  the  as- 
tronomers ;  they  were  prepared  to  attack  the  sun  along 
the  whole  line  of  total  obscuration  from  Alaska  to 
North  Carolina.  Parties  were  posted  with  telescopes, 
spectroscopes,  and  photographic  instruments  on  both 
sides  of  Behring's  Straits,  at  Sitka  Sound,  on  the  Pa- 
cific ;  in  IMontana,  Nebraska,  Iowa,  Illinois,  Kentucky, 
Indiana,  Virginia,  and  North  Carolina. 

At  last,  at  the  predicted  moment,  the  moon  impinged 
on  the  edge  of  the  sun's  disk.  It  moved  on,  eating  out 
a  larger  and  larger  piece,  till  at  last  the  sun  became  a 
crescent ;  the  sky  grew  gray,  the  air  chill,  the  foliage 
and  grass  became  leaden,  all  faces  gathered  paleness. 
The  crescent  became  an  edge  of  light,  a  line  of  light, 
but  still  it  blazed  and  dazzled.  Suddenly  it  broke  into 
beads  of  light,  then  these  disappeared  till  only  one  re- 
mained. This  one  point  blazed  with  a  brilliancy  daz- 
zling the  eye,  and  then  disappeared  !  At  that  moment 
came  a  phenomenon  which  no  language  can  describe. 
Suddenly,  in  place  of  this  dazzling,  blazing  sun,  there 
was  seen,  in  mid-heaven,  a  black  sun,  surrounded  by  a 


332  DIABY  AND  CORRESPONBENCE. 

luminous  waving  border  of  the  purest  white  light.  This 
corona  or  halo  did  not  blaze  nor  dazzle,  like  direct  sun- 
light. Pure  and  snowy  in  its  celestial  beauty  it  waved 
around  the  black  sun  and  flashed  out  on  every  side  far 
into  the  darkened  heavens.  On  the  right  of  the  sun,  at 
the  same  moment,  appeared  Mercury.  Venus  glittered 
above,  and  other  stars.  They  suggested  to  me  the  lines 
in  an  old  English  play  :  — 

' '  Let  it  be  mentioned 

They  served  but  as  small  tapers,  to  attend 

The  solemn  flame  of  this  great  funeral." 

The  sky  had  seemed  cloudless  up  to  the  moment  of 
complete  obscuration.  But  then,  along  the  horizon,  in 
the  north  and  south  came  out  suddenly  a  mass  of  angry, 
stormy,  yellow  clouds,  as  though  some  great  fire  were 
blazing  on  the  prairies,  or  a  terrific  thunder-storm  were 
at  hand.  Just  then,  too,  on  the  lower  edge  of  the  black 
moon  came  out  a  spot  of  ruby  or  carmine  color,  a  little 
protuberance  which  grew  larger  and  larger  very  rapidly, 
while  similar  rosy  clouds  grew  out  into  the  white  corona 
on  other  parts  of  the  lunar  circumference.  These  were 
masses  of  burning  hydrogen  gas,  blazing  up  from  the 
surface  of  the  sun  into  the  solar  atmosphere,  and  one  of 
those  which  we  saw  was  computed  to  ascend  a  hundred 
thousand  miles  while  we  were  looking  at  it.  Conceive 
what  a  frightful  hurricane  of  flame  this  must  be  to  be 
seen  so  large,  and  moving  so  fast,  at  the  distance  of 
ninety-six  millions  of  miles  !  And  yet  these  enormous 
tornadoes  of  flame  are  so  insignificant  compared  with 
the  sunbeams  that  a  single  ray  of  sunshine  hides  them 
all.  They  have  never  been  seen  except  in  a  total 
eclipse. 

Hundreds  of  photographs  were  taken  at  the  different 
points,  and  these  we  shall  be  able  to  see.  But  the 
eclipse  itself  was  such  a  wonderful  phenomenon  that 
I  would  willingly  have  gone  the  next  day  twelve  hun- 
dred miles  farther  to  see  it  over  again. 


VARIED  ACTIVITIES.  333 


TO    A.    H.    C. 

August  19,  1869. 
I  am  at  present  in  Kinnikinik  township,  Wiscon- 
sin, about  ten  miles  east  of  Hudson  on  the  St.  Croix 
Kiver,  and  twenty  north  of  Prescott  on  the  Mississi[)pi. 
Five  brothers  and  our  nephew  Freeman  are  in  one 
room,  lying  about  the  floor  at  a  farmhouse ;  grouse 
fields  and  trout  brooks  all  about  us.  Around  are  pic- 
turesque bluffs,  like  the  cliffs  above  the  Eliine,  with 
miles  and  miles  of  fertile  valleys  between,  great  fields 
rolling  in  waves  of  golden  wheat.  Abraham  and  I 
arrived  yesterday  afternoon,  and  before  dark  we  six 
brought  in  twenty  grouse,  some  of  which  we  had  for 
breakfast.  I  have  not  fired  a  gun  before  since  1850,  in 
Meadville.^  The  air  is  as  pure  and  fresh  and  delicious  as 
that  of  Mount  Desert.     I  drink  in  health  at  every  pore. 

Hudson,  Wis.,  Sunday,  August  22,  1869. 
We  left  "  the  farm  "  last  evening,  and  came  here  to 
pass  Sunday ;  Sam  came  Friday.  .  .  .  To-day  I  shall  go 
to  church  and  enjoy  the  comfort  of  listening  to  a  ser- 
vice. This  town  is  on  Lake  St.  Croix,  an  expansion  of 
the  St.  Croix  Eiver.  It  is  in  the  midst  of  great  wheat- 
growing  farms,  and  is  a  thriving  place.  Being  also  in 
the  midst  of  trout  streams,  deer-licks,  and  grouse,  the 
inhabitants  seem  to  make  sport  their  business,  and  treat 
their  business  as  sport.  Every  man  you  meet  is  ready 
to  turn  the  key  in  his  office  door,  put  up  a  placard  "  To 
be  back  to-morrow,"  and  go  with  one  gladly  to  hunt  or 

1  During-  his  earlier  visits  to  Meadville  he  would  occasionally  take 
his  giin  when  he  went  to  walk  in  the  woods,  which  were  full  of  g-ame  ; 
but  in  December,  1850,  he  writes  to  his  mother  from  Meadville  :  "  I 
have  been  obliged  to  promise  the  children  not  to  g-o  a-gunning  any 
more,  they  felt  so  badly  when  I  brought  home  birds  or  a  rabbit.  I 
brought  a  rabbit  the  other  day,  and  Ellie  came  to  me  with  a  very 
solemn  face  and  whispered,  '  Papa,  you  have  broken  the  Golden  Kule, 
you  have,  really.'     I  thought  he  was  more  than  half  right." 


334  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

fish.     The  landlord  of  this  hotel  spent  yesterday  after- 
noon fishing  in  the  lake  with  Sam.  .  .  . 

I  should  be  very  willing  to  turn  my  face  homeward 
to-morrow,  but  I  wish  to  tempt  William  to  prolong  his 
stay.  ...  I  waded  two  hours  on  Friday  in  the  Kinni- 
kinik  Kiver,  and  caught  two  trout,  a  trout  an  hour. 
William  waded  four  or  five  hours,  and  caught  about 
twenty.  .  .  . 

Hudson,  Wis.,  August  23,  1869. 

.  .  .  We  are  going  down  the  river  to-day  on  our  way 
to  Milwaukee.  Yesterday  I  went  in  the  morning  to  the 
Presbyterian  church,  and  heard  a  good  sermon  on  '•  Re- 
creations," defending  their  legitimate  use.  In  the  even- 
ing I  went  to  a  different  church,  and  heard  a  discourse 
from  the  text,  "  Keep  thy  heart  with  all  diligence,  for 
out  of  it  are  the  issues  of  life."  The  preacher  argued 
that  Solomon  must  have  known  the  circulation  of  the 
blood,  and  hence  the  Bible  was  inspired !  He  thought 
also  that  Job  must  have  known  that  the  solar  system 
is  moving  toward  the  Pleiades  when  he  said,  "Canst 
thou  bind  the  sweet  influences  of  the  Pleiades  ?  "  I 
hope  I  do  not  use  such  foolish  arguments  as  these.  .  .  . 

Milwaukee,  August  26,  1869. 
.  .  .  We  waited  at  Prescott  till  about  eleven  p.  m.  for 
the  St.  Paul  steamer  on  its  way  down  the  river.  By 
that  time  the  weather  had  become  beautifully  clear,  and 
a  moon  nearly  full  threw  the  most  enchanting  light  on 
the  river  and  the  high  hills  on  its  banks.  William  and 
I  sat  on  the  guards  enjoying  the  lovely  night,  and  talked 
till  almost  three  o'clock  about  old  times,  —  his  journey 
thirty  years  ago  from  Mackinaw  up  to  the  head  of  Lake 
Superior  in  a  canoe,  and  then  down  the  Mississippi, 
when  there  was  scarcely  a  white  settler  above  Prairie 
du  Chien.  Then  I  slept  an  hour,  and  rose  at  four  and 
watched  the  morning  slowly  dawning  over  the  river  and 
Mils.     During  the  forenoon  we  passed  scenery  so  fine 


VARIED  ACTIVITIES.  335 

that  I  think  it  worth  a  journey  here  to  see  it.  We 
reached  La  Crosse  at  one  p.  m.,  and  were  obliged  to 
stay  there  till  nine  p.  m.,  waiting  for  a  train.  The  day 
was  intensely  warm.  I  went  out  and  found  a  place 
where,  under  the  shade  of  some  trees,  we  could  enjoy  a 
cool  draught  of  air.  It  is  true  the  trees  had  been  cut 
down  and  sawn  into  boards,  and  the  location  was  be- 
tween two  piles  of  boards  of  sweet  piny  perfume  and 
terebinthine  aroma.  A  thunder-storm  toward  night 
cooled  the  air  somewhat. 

I  shall  go  to  Chicago,  preach  there  on  Sunday  and 
then  set  out  for  home. 

TO    HIS    SISTER,    IX    ROME. 

December  28,  1869. 
.  .  .  Boston  pursues  its  ancient  way  and  is  what  it 
was,  only  more  so  ;  lectures  here  and  lectures  there, 
learned  societies,  literary  reunions,  no  end  of  new  pub- 
lications ;  meetings,  —  morning,  noon,  at  dewy  eve,  and 
silent  night.  The  city  rushes  and  roars  with  business, 
like  the  Ohio  in  a  freshet,  or  the  yellow  Tiber  :  — 

..."  retortis 
Littore  Etrusco  violenter  undis." 

.  .  ,  All  night  the  city  rushes  with  ardent  crowds  in 
pursuit  of  knowledge  at  lectures,  or  in  pursuit  of  pleas- 
ure at  theatres  and  balls.  .  .  . 

As  for  me  my  business  this  Avinter  is  as  follows  :  I 
am  giving  four  series  of  discourses,  viz.,  four  sermons 
on  the  questions  between  atheists  and  theists,  four  on 
the  questions  between  Christian  theists  and  others,  four 
on  the  questions  between  church  authority  and  that  of 
reason,  four  on  the  questions  between  broad  and  narrow 
Christianity.  These  on  Sunday  mornings.  I  am  pre- 
paring for  publication  in  the  spring,  volume  i.  of  ''  Com- 
parative Theology  of  Ethnic  and  Catholic  Religions," 
to  be  published  by  Fields  &  Osgood.  I  hope  to  finish  it 
in  time.     Then  I  write  something  for  each  number  of 


336  DIAEY  AND  COBRESPONDENCE. 

Hale's  new  magazine,  which  has  swallowed,  silently, 
with  capacious  throat,  both  the  great  "  Christian  Ex- 
aminer "  and  the  little  "  Monthly  Journal."  ...  I  have 
my  weekly  lecture  to  the  divinity  students  at  Cam- 
bridge, my  Wednesday  night  lecture  to  my  church,  pas- 
toral visits,  and  occasional  theatre  preaching,  and  ly- 
ceum  lectures. 

"So  happily  the  years  of  Thalaba  go  by." 

TO    E.    E.    HALE. 

November  8,  1870. 
I  expected  to  see  you  last  night  at  the  [Examiner] 
Club.     I  write  to  say  that  I  am  engaged  to  lecture  on 
Thursday  night  at  Grantville.     I  am  sorry  if  this  disap- 
points you,  and  will  go  to  you  some  other  time. 

Did  you  find  my  little  poem  ?     And  what  do  you 
think  of  appending  the  moral,  — 

The  Christ-like  child  seekest  thou  ?     Go  not  apart  — 
But  be  a  child  thyself,  and  he  is  in  thy  heart. 

Please  let  them  send  me  the  proofs  of  ^'  Wanted,  a 
Statesman." 

TO    W.    G.    ELIOT. 

August  19,  1871. 
Thank  you,  dear  William,  for  your  very  kind  and 
bright  letter.  I  cannot  stop  now  to  answer  it ;  but  I  will 
only  say  that  if  you  have  been  tempted  to  envy  me  for 
anything  I  have  been  enabled  to  do,  I  also  have  often 
experienced  that  amiable  sentiment  when  I  have  con- 
sidered your  magnificent  work.  I  suppose  we  all  un- 
derrate what  we  have,  and  overrate  what  we  have  not. 
But  the  man  of  action,  who  can  translate  thought  into 
life,  who  can  root  it  in  institutions,  who  can  direct  and 
control  men,  is  at  least  equal  to  the  man  of  books. 

"Weak-winged  is  song, 
Nor  aims  at  that  clear-ethered  height 
Whither  the  brave  deed  climbs  for  light." 


VARIED  ACTIVITIES.  337 

The  man  who  has  done  your  work  and  developed 
such  power  need  not  wish  for  any  other  man's  gift. 

TO    A.    II.    C. 

Washington,  December  9,  1871. 

I  had  a  good  time  in  Philadelphia,  —  went  to  see  Dr. 
Furness  and  the  Lesleys  ;  to  Germantown  to  see  Ee- 
becca  Bond.  Saw  the  philosophical-instrument  maker 
about  my  lantern.  Mr.  Lesley  was  much  pleased  with 
the  lantern,  and  said  the  only  wonder  was  that  it  had 
not  been  invented  before.  ...  I  came  to  Washington 
on  Thursday,  and  lectured  for  Mr.  Hinckley  Thursday 
evening.  Mr.  Boutwell,  Mr.  Twitchell,  and  other  gen- 
tlemen Avere  there  and  asked  me  to  come  and  see  them. 
I  have  spent  an  hour  with  Charles  Sumner  in  his  house, 
where  he  showed  me  all  his  pictures  and  works  of  art. 

Last  evening  we  had  a  very  good  opening  meeting 
of  the  [Woman]  Suffrage  Association.  The  speakers 
were  Mrs.  Stone,  Mrs.  Howe,  and  myself.  The  hall 
was  full  of  an  attentive  audience,  including  Senators 
and  other  members  of  Congress.  To-day  the  meeting 
goes  on,  morning,  afternoon,  and  evening.  I  shall  lunch 
with  Mr.  Twitchell,  and  then,  perhaps,  go  with  him  to 
see  the  President.  For  Cora's  sake  I  shall  see  the  Agri- 
cultural Museum,  and  for  my  own  sake  the  Congres- 
sional Library.  To-morrow  I  preach  in  the  Unitarian 
church  in  the  morning,  and  in  the  theatre  in  the  even- 
ing. 

TO    HIS    SISTER,    IX    ROME. 

February  15,  1872. 

To-day  is  with  us  a  sacred  anniversary.  Shall  I  ever 
forget  that  morning  when  our  dear  child's  life  was 
slowly  ebbing  away,  and  all  that  love  and  thouglit  and 
prayer  could  do  was  —  nothing.  It  seems  yesterday 
only,  and  the  unappeasable  sorrow,  the  wound  that 
will  never  close,  is  in  our  hearts  all  the  same  as  then. 


338  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

So  much  lie  might  have  been,  done,  become.  So  much 
to  his  mother,  sisters,  brother.  Such  a  tie  he  was  to 
this  world  and  the  next.  .  .  .  The  "  scar  of  that  deep- 
stabbed  woe  "  may  be  hidden,  but  it  aches  still  after 
twenty-three  years. 

Dear  Sarah,  why  does  the  time  go  by,  and  we  have 
no  more  to  say  to  each  other  ?  The  stream  of  time 
rushes  along  so  rapidly  as  it  nears  the  cataract  that 
two  boats,  though  near  each  other,  are  effectually  sepa- 
rated by  the  forceful  river. 

TO    E.    E.    HALE. 

October  9,  1872. 
I  have  found  an  article  in  the  "  Eevue  des  Deux 
Mondes  "  for  August  1st,  giving  an  account  of  the  open- 
ing of  the  University  of  Zurich  to  women  in  all  de- 
partments, especially  in  the  medical  faculty.  It  speaks 
in  high  terms  of  the  success  of  the  enterprise.  I  have 
translated  it,  and  thought  of  preparing  an  article  on  the 
general  subject,  in  which  it  is  to  be  introduced.  Would 
you  like  it  for  your  "  Kecord  of  Progress  "  ? 

TO    HIS    SISTER. 

Jamaica  Plain,  March  5,  1873. 

.  .  .  To-day  Anna  and  I  went  to  the  State  House, 
where  I  made  a  little  speech  before  the  committee  to 
which  was  referred  Mr.  Whittier's  petition,  urging  the 
legislature  to  rescind  their  vote  of  censure  on  Charles 
Sumner.  Mr.  Whittier  had  asked  me  to  go  and  speak. 
.  .  .  We  have  been  having  a  series  of  interesting  meet- 
ings in  our  church  on  Wednesday  evenings,  on  the 
charities  of  Boston.     The  subjects,  thus  far,  have  been : 

"  What  is  doing  here  for  animals  ?  " 

"  What  is  doing  for  young  men  ?  " 

"  What  is  doing  for  street-boys  ?  " 

"  What  is  doing  for  infants  ?  " 

"  What  is  doing  for  the  poor  ?  " 


VARIED  ACTIVITIES.  339 

To  each  of  these  meetings  I  have  invited  experts,  — 
persons  connected  with  the  various  charities,  —  and 
they  have  compared  notes,  and  given  much  interesting 
information.  We  have  had  Catholics  and  Protestants, 
Orthodox  men  and  Unitarians,  —  and  the  lion  at  these 
meetings  has  lain  down  with  the  lamb,  and  the  lamb 
has  not  been  inside  of  him,  either.  .  .  . 

TO    HIS    SISTER. 

April  9,  1873. 
Our  dear  old  friend  "  Don  "  ^  has  gone  to  the  place, 
wherever  it  may  be,  that  good  dogs  go  to.  Surely  he 
has  a  right  to  some  happy  home,  if  ever  a  dog  had.  He 
never  was  cross,  never  out  of  temper;  he  overflowed 
with  love  and  devotion  to  all  of  us.  To  be  near  us  was 
happiness  enough  for  him.  The  best  people  have  their 
moods,  —  Don  never  had  any.  He  died  of  gradual  de- 
cay ;  he  has  been  fading  away  "  to  the  land  of  the 
leal "  for  some  months.  Life  had  become  a  burden  to 
him,  —  his  bright  eye  was  growing  dim,  his  joyful 
nature  torpid.  At  last,  on  Fast  Day,  April  3,  he  crept 
away  to  the  shelter  of  a  large  tree,  and  laid  himself 
down  at  its  root,  led  by  that  curious  instinct  which  tells 
dogs  when  their  death  is  at  hand.  There  he  lay,  with- 
out moving  or  eating,  till  the  afternoon  of  Friday,  April 
4,  and  then  sank  gently  into  death.  A  few  minutes 
before  he  died  he  lapped  a  little  water  from  Lilian's 
hand.  We  buried  him  under  the  tree  next  day;  and 
our  hearts  have  been  sad  ever  since.  He  was  one  of 
the  family.  It  will  seem  lonely  not  to  see  him  about 
the  yard  when  we  come  home.  I  shall  put  a  stone  over 
him,  with  his  name  and  the  words,  "  A?Jiavit  multum.''^ 

1  "  Don  "  was  a  Newfoundland  dog,  who  had  passed  all  his  life  in 
the  family. 


340  DIARY  AND  CORBESPONDENCE. 


TO    A.    H.    C. 

Louisville,  Ky.,  May  5,  1873. 
It  seems  very  natural  to  be  writing  from  Louisville, 
—  though  the  Louisville  of  to-day  is  widely  different 
from  that  to  which  I  came  forty  years  ago.  It  is  now 
a  splendid,  beautiful  city.  Mr.  Hey  wood's  house,  where 
I  am,  is  better  than  any  house  that  then  existed  in 
Louisville ;  more  tasteful,  convenient,  and  desirable  as 
a  residence.  It  stands  in  the  midst  of  a  green  garden, 
wdth  shrubbery  around  it.  .  .  .  We  reached  Louisville 
at  eight  a.  m.  on  Saturday,  and  I  called  the  same  day  on 
Judge  and  Mrs.  Pirtle,  Mary  and  Eliza  Speed,  Mrs. 
Speed  and  Martha,  her  daughter,  and  Philip  and  Emma. 
They  were  all  glad  to  see  me.  Yesterday  I  gave  a  les- 
son to  the  Sunday-school,  of  which  Mr.  Munn  is  super- 
intendent, preached  morning  and  evening  to  large  con- 
gregations, and  took  tea  at  Judge  Pirtle's.  The  judge 
is  very  deaf,  but  has  the  same  sweet  smile  he  used  to 
have.  Mrs.  Pirtle  is  sick,  confined  to  her  chamber,  but 
saw  me  there ;  and  one  of  her  grandchildren  was  bap- 
tized yesterday  afternoon.  .  .  . 

TO    A.    H.    C. 

Louisville,  May  6,  1873. 
.  .  .  Yesterday  I  spent  another  hour  with  Eliza  and 
Mary  Speed,  took  tea  with  Philip  and  Emma,  and  went 
to  a  sociable  at  the  church,  where  I  gave  some  reminis- 
cences of  former  days  in  Louisville.  I  have  shaken 
hands  with  a  hundred  people,  for  Mr.  Heywood  wishes 
me  to  see  all  his  friends.  .  .  .  Eliza  Speed  told  me  how 
staunch  a  patriot  her  mother  had  been  during  the  war, 
and  how  her  little  nephew,  Philip's  youngest  son,  had 
refused  to  shout  for  Seymour  when  his  schoolfellows, 
rebels,  held  him  out  of  the  upper  window  of  the  school- 
house,  and  threatened  to  drop  him  if  he  would  not.  I 
drove  out  with  Mr.  Heywood,  Mr.  Belknap,  and  Judge 


VARIED  ACTIVITIES.  341 

Ballard;  to  dine  with  Joshua  Speed,  Mr.  Lincoln's 
friend.  Joshua  told  me  many  anecdotes  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,  and  gave  me  a  letter  of  his.  On  my  return,  I 
saw  a  Colonel  Whitman,  who  was  in  Kansas  with  John 
Brown,  and  told  me  anecdotes  about  those  days.  .  .  . 

In  Louisville  I  have  bathed  in  memories  of  the  past, 
and,  as  Dryden  says,  "  The  weight  of  years  and  cares 
fell  from  me  "  in  these  recollections  of  youth,  hope,  and 
the  beginnings  of  experience.  How  poor  life  would  be 
without  such  recollections  ! 

TO    MRS.    G.    S.    IIILLARD. 

New  York,  June  18,  1873. 
My  dear  Mrs.  Hillard,  —  I  received  your  note 
yesterday,  and  am  very  glad  you  asked  me  to  go  and 
see  X.  I  will  certainly  do  so.  I  always  feel  when 
any  request  comes  to  me  to  see  any  one  in  trouble,  as 
though  the  Lord  sent  it  to  show  that  he  takes  an  inter- 
est in  me.  Some  persons  think  their  sins  forgiven 
when  they  have  a  feeling  to  that  effect.  I  think  God 
forgives  us  our  sins  whenever  he  allows  us  to  do  any- 
thing for  each  other.  So,  when  such  a  request  as  yours 
comes  to  me,  I  seem  to  hear  the  Lord  saying,  "  Son,  be 
of  good  cheer,  thy  sins  are  forgiven  thee  !  "  .  .  . 

TO    HIS    SISTER. 

Jamaica  Plain,  July  11,  1873. 
My  trip  to  the  West  was  very  pleasant.  I  went  to 
Chicago,  Milwaukee,  Louisville,  Cincinnati,  and  Mead- 
ville.  I  went  with  good  Mr.  Heywood  to  Louisville, 
and  passed  three  or  four  days,  preached  twice,  and 
found  many  old  friends,  as  warm-hearted  as  ever.  I 
had  a  delightful  time.  Among  other  visits  I  enjoyed 
one  to  Joshua  Speed,  who  went  to  Illinois  when  about 
twenty-two  or  twenty-three  years  old,  and  kept  a  store 
in  Springfield.  One  day  Abraham  Lincoln  came  into 
his  store,  and  said,  "  Mr.  Speed,  I  have  opened  an  ofhee 


342  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

in  this  town,  and  I  have  a  bedstead,  but  I  want  a  mat- 
tress, pillow,  blankets,  and  sheets.  I  cannot  pay  you 
now,  but  perhaps  I  can  after  the  next  court ;  what 
will  be  the  cost  ?  "  Mr.  Speed  replied,  "  Seventeen  dol- 
lars," and  Mr.  Lincoln  looked  alarmed.  Mr.  Speed  said, 
"  You  need  not  pay  me  till  you  are  ready,  Mr.  Lincoln  ; 
there  is  no  hurry  about  that ;  but,  if  you  prefer,  you 
may  share  my  room  overhead ;  it  is  a  large  room." 
"  How  do  you  get  to  it  ?  "  asked  Mr.  Lincoln.  Mr. 
Speed  pointed  to  stairs  in  the  corner.  Mr.  Lincoln 
went  up,  deposited  his  saddle-bags  in  the  corner  of  the 
chamber,  came  down,  and  said,  "  I  Ve  moved  in,  Mr. 
Speed."  They  occupied  the  same  room  five  years,  and 
Mr.  Speed  remained  always  Mr.  Lincoln's  most  intimate 
friend.  He  said  that  Lincoln  was  free  from  all  vices. 
He  never  drank  nor  gambled,  but  spent  his  time  iu 
hard  study  over  his  cases.  Mr.  Speed  told  me  many 
other  interesting  stories  about  Lincoln. 

TO    H.    W.    BELLOWS. 

December  22,  1873. 
I  was  delighted  to  receive  your  cordial  and  friendly 
note,  and  to  learn  that  you  were  well  enough  to  read 
my  book  and  to  wa^ite  to  me  about  it.  I  received  a  let- 
ter the  same  day  from  Mr.  Weeden,  who  said  that  all 
you  needed  was  six  months'  rest,  and  that  then  you 
would  be  as  well  as  ever.  This  was  good  news,  for  we 
cannot  spare  you  yet,  nor  for  a  long  time  to  come.  I 
do  not  think  they  need  you  as  much  in  the  other  world 
as  we  do.  Therefore  I  beseech  you  to  take  a  good  six 
months'  rest  somewhere,  where  no  one  can  get  at  you ; 
where  you  cannot  preach,  lecture,  write,  or  be  consulted 
with  on  any  business,  theological,  philanthropic,  lit- 
erary, social,  or  political.  Let  us  keep  on  working  to- 
gether here,  and  when  our  work  is  w^ell  done,  perhaps 
we  can  go  together  and  visit  our  friends  on  the  other 
side  of  the  beautiful  river  w^hich  men  call  the  stream  of 


VARIED  ACTIVITIES.  343 

Death,  but  whicli  the  angels  doubtless  call  that  of  Life 
infinite  and  eternal. 

I  thank  you  heartily  for  the  warm  sympathy  you 
have  always  felt  with  every  effort  of  mine  to  say  or  do 
anything  useful.  It  has  been  very  grateful  to  me,  and 
has  encouraged  me  to  new  endeavor.  .  .  .  There  is  one 
point  in  whicli  you  and  I  are  alike,  —  in  our  efforts,  we 
have  always  written,  spoken,  and  acted  to  do  good,  not 
thinking  of  literary  position  or  fame. 

TO    HIS    SISTER. 

Jamaica  Plain,  February  12,  1874. 

It  gave  us  all  unmitigated  pleasure  to  hear  of  }- our 
Nile-boat  trip.  Next  to  going  myself,  is  my  joy  in 
knowing  that  you  are  there,  and  perhaps  I  am  more 
glad  at  having  you  in  Egypt  than  if  I  myself  were 
meditating  in  the  tombs  of  Beni  Hassan,  or  examining 
the  hieroglyphs  of  Karnak.  There  are  cases  when  the 
law  maxim,  "Quifacitper  alium  facit  per  se,^^  applies  to 
sight-seeing  ;  and  one  of  these  is  when  we  have  such  an 
observing  and  recording  friend  as  you  are  to  do  our 
traveling  for  us,  and  save  us  the  trouble  of  going  to 
"  Arabia  the  stony,  Sabaea  the  gummy." 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  think  of  you  lazily  creeping  along 
on  the  surface  of  the  Kiver  of  the  Pharaohs,  surrounded 
by  reminiscences  of  Moses  and  his  bulrushes,  and  bask- 
ing with  the  crocodiles  in  unchanging  warmth,  while  we  . 
shiver  over  our  registers,  and  pass  through  the  classical 
routine  of  colds,  coughs,  rheumatisms,  bronchial  affec- 
tions, and  pulmonary  disabilities.  You  amuse  your- 
selves with  pyramids  and  sphinxes ;  while  we  have 
nothing  more  venerable  than  our  Old  South  Church. 

See,  then,  with  all  your  eyes  ;  listen,  with  all  your 
ears  ;  and  be  able  to  give  us,  when  you  come  back,  the 
last  news  from  the  Fourteenth  Century  B.  C.  IMean- 
time  we  must  give  you  all  the  news  we  can  of  our  busy 
ant-hill  life  in  Boston.  .  .  .  With  the  exception  of  colds, 


344  DIABY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

which  this  year  are  more  numerous  and  obstinate  than 
usual,  we  are  well  here.  Lilian  enjoys  her  class  with 
Mr.  Hunt.  Our  church  is  full  every  Sunday,  so  I  do 
not  think  that  any  apoplexy  is  getting  into  my  sermons 
as  yet.  They  are  now  being  printed  every  week  in 
full  in  the  "  Saturday  Gazette ; "  and  I  have  directed 
them  to  be  sent  regularly  to  you  in  Rome ;  but  I  do  not 
suppose  that  you  will  receive  any  of  them  at  the  upper 
cataracts,  or  find  advertisements  of  them  placarded  on 
the  ruins  of  Denderah. 

Eecently  I  made  a  visit  to  the  Schuylers  in  New 
York,  and  spent  a  week  there,  enjoying  myself  much. 
They  had  a  little  dinner-party  for  me  every  evening. 
Two  very  interesting  English  people  were  also  guests 
in  the  house,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Laurence  Oliphant.  .  .  . 
Mr.  0.,  after  having  figured  as  London  man  of  society, 
author,  traveler,  diplomate,  now  belongs,  with  his  wife 
and  his  mother  (Lady  Oliphant),  to  a  religious  com- 
munity on  Lake  Erie,  under  the  leading  of  T.  L.  Harris. 
I  also  saw,  in  New  York,  Clarence  King,  the  California 
mountain-climber  and  geologist,  who  showed  me  his 
photographs  of  the  Sierra  Nevada.  ...  In  Boston,  I  go 
to  two  clubs,  the  Examiner  Club,  where  we  discuss 
grave  moral  and  social  questions,  and  the  Thursday 
Club,  where  we  have  scientific  lectures  and  papers.  .  .  . 

We  see  by  the  papers  this  morning  that  the  Massa- 
chusetts Senate  has  repealed  the  vote  of  censure  on 
Charles  Sumner,  passed  by  a  previous  one.  The  House 
will  probably  do  the  same.  The  real  motive  of  the  cen- 
sure on  Sumner  was  his  opposition  to  Grant,  and  the 
people  have  compelled  the  political  leaders  to  rescind 
their  anti-Sumner  resolutions. 

There  are  people  in  Boston  who  think,  with  Eoh 
Roy,  that 

"  Of  old  thing-s,  all  are  over-old ; 
Of  new  tilings,  none  are  new  enough." 


VARIED  ACTIVITIES.  345 

So  they  are  for  pulling  down  the  Old  South  Church,  and 
cuttmg  down  the  Paddock  elms  on  Tremont  Street. 

To  you,  who  are  looking  at  buildings  erected  3000 
B.  c,  this  may  seem  a  small  matter,  but  we  are  fighting 
in  sermons  and  newspapers  for  our  antiquities,  trying, 
but  I  fear  trying  in  vain,  to  check  that  desolating  tide 
which  will  soon  make  of  Boston  a  third-rate  Chicago. 

If  we  have  to  lose  the  Old  South  Church,  perhaps 
you  can  console  me  by  bringing  me  some  Egyptian  an- 
tiquity. I  authorize  you  to  buy  for  me  an  authentic 
mummy  of  Joseph  or  Cleopatra,  or  a  papyrus  auto- 
graph of  the  decree  ordering  Pharaoh's  baker  to  be 
hung,  or  of  that  allowing  Moses  to  go  with  the  Israel- 
ites out  of  Egypt.  Even  the  signet  ring  of  INIenes,  if 
you  come  by  it,  or  a  scarabaeus  which  belonged  to  Se- 
sostris,  would  content  me.  But  do  not  trouble  your- 
self to  find  these  little  souvenirs  of  the  past.  After 
all,  a  piece  of  Eoxbury  pudding-stone  is  older  than 
any  of  them. 

Well,  dear  Sarah,  have  a  pleasant  time ;  and  when 
you  get  back  to  Rome,  I  shall  think  you  are  close  by. 
You  must  feel  then  as  if  you  had  emerged  from  a  grim 
past  into  modern  times.  The  papacy  will  appear  a 
thing  of  yesterday,  and  the  Arch  of  Titus  of  the  day 
before  yesterday.  We  shall  welcome  you  back,  with 
joy,  to  our  "  little  life  of  strut  and  rave,"  and  all  our 
"  pasteboard  passions  and  desires." 

He  has  told  us  in  his  Autobiography  about  the  college 
class  of  '29,  to  which  he  considered  it  his  good  fortune 
to  belong.     Mr.  May  was  (and  is)  secretary  of  the  class. 


TO    SAMUEL    MAY. 

Jamaica  Plain,  February  0,  1874. 
Dear  Sam,  —  It  is  very  good  of  you  to  speak  of  me 
as  you  do ;  but  I  seem  to  myself  to  have  been  a  very 


346  DIABY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

poor  sort  of  a  worker,  and  I  can  almost  take  to  myself 
Wordsworth's  lines, 

*'  But  he  is  weak,  both  man  and  boy,  — 
Hath  been  an  idler  in  the  land. 
Contented,  if  he  can  enjoy 

The  things  which  others  understand." 

The  thmgs  I  most  wished  to  do,  I  have  never  done ; 
the  things  I  have  done  best,  I  have  only  half  done.  I 
have  lived  "  au  jour  lejour,^^  and  merely  tried  to  do  the 
nearest  duty.  The  first  sermon  I  ever  preached  had  for 
its  text-  (it  was  preached  in  the  school)  what  I  meant  for 
the  motto  of  my  life,  "  Whatever  thy  hand  finds  to  do, 
do  it  with  thy  might."  I  have  kept  this  ideal  before 
me,  though  I  have  never  fulfilled  it,  —  whatever  my 
hand  found  to  do,  the  thing  which  lay  at  hand ;  not  what 
the  heart  desired,  not  what  the  ambition  aspired  to,  not 
what  the  will  chose,  but  what  the  hand  found.  I  have 
always  believed  in  Providence,  and  so  have  never  de- 
sponded; I  have  always  trusted  in  the  essential  good- 
will of  my  felloAv-men,  and  have  not  been  deceived. 
This  life  I  have  held  to  be  sweet,  and  the  next  life  at 
least  as  good  as  this.  Cheerfulness  and  contentment 
have  kept  me  well,  so  far  as  I  have  kept  well,  both  in 
body  and  mind.  I  have  come  nearer  to  God  every  3'ear, 
finding  in  Him  love  which  is  always  laAV,  and  law  which 
is  always  love.  My  creed  has  grown  shorter  every  year, 
until  I  now  put  it  into  four  words,  "From  God,  for 
man." 

.  .  .  Some  day,  when  I  am  taken  from  you,  in  out- 
ward presence,  but  not  in  heart,  —  for  wherever  in 
God's  universe  I  may  be,  I  shall  think  of  our  dear  class 
still,  —  you  will  perhaps  read  to  them  this  note,  kept  in 
your  book  till  then,  and  so  they  will  hear  me  once  more 
speaking  to  them,  and  telling  them  to  believe  that  Ave 
shall  come  together  somewhere  in  the  vast  bej^ond. 
Truly  yours, 

James  Freemax  Clarke. 


VARIED  ACTIVITIES.  347 

In  1874  a  bronchial  trouble  obliged  Mr.  Clarke  to  go 
to  the  South.  He  left  home  March  18th  (accompanied 
by  Mrs.  Clarke),  and  was  absent  nine  weeks.  During 
the  journey  he  everywhere  investigated  the  condition  of 
the  colored  people,  went  to  their  schools,  attended  ser- 
vice at  their  churches,  and  talked  with  them  while  they 
were  at  work  in  their  little  patches  of  prospective  corn 
or  cotton.  At  Beaufort,  S.  C,  they  visited  Mr.  Clarke's 
parishioner.  Miss  Botume,  who  for  ten  years  had  been 
teaching  a  colored  school  near  there.  On  Sunday  they 
attended  the  afternoon  service  in  the  schoolhouse,  five 
miles  distant,  and  at  its  close  Mr.  Clarke  spoke  to  the 
earnest  little  group  of  worshipers.  Before  separating, 
the  people  crowded  into  one  of  the  recitation  rooms  and 
had  a  "  shout,"  which  consisted  of  a  sort  of  chant,  ac- 
companied by  a  measured,  shuffling  movement,  round 
and  round  in  a  circle.  It  was  not  easy  to  distinguish 
the  words,  but  one  of  the  women  repeated  over  and  over, 
"  Oh,  Lord,  I  'se  so  lonesome,  Oh,  Lord,  I  'se  so  lone- 
some." After  the  shout,  every  one  in  the  schoolhouse, 
men,  women,  and  children,  shook  hands  with  j\Ir.  and 
Mrs.  Clarke.  One  of  the  women  said,  "  I  hope  you  '11 
arrive  safely  at  home,  if  ever  you  live  to  get  there." 
Many  of  them  had  kind  words  to  say,  and  all  seemed 
like  friends.  On  Monday,  the  whole  day  was  passed  at 
the  school,  which  was  on  Old  Fort  plantation,  a  pic- 
turesque place,  which  takes  its  name  from  a  Huguenot 
fort,  whose  remains  are  still  visible.  On  this  plantation 
Dr.  jSTehemiah  Adams  wrote  his  "  South  Side  View  of 
Slavery."  His  favorite  seat  was  shown,  in  a  grove  of 
live-oaks,  from  whose  branches  depend  the  long,  sway- 
ing drapery  of  the  Southern  moss.  Mr.  Clarke  meas- 
ured one  of  these  trees,  and  found  the  distance  be- 
tween its  outermost  tips  to  be  120  feet.  During  the 
war  these  weird  trees  witnessed  a  memorable  scene. 
On  the  first  day  of  January,  1863,  the  colored  people 
came  from  every  direction,  —  from  Beaufort,  Port  Royal, 


348  DIAEY  AND  COBBESPONDENCE. 

St.  Helena,  Lady's  Island ;  from  "  the  Main ;  "  from 
every  accessible  place,  —  they  and  their  white  friends, 
and  the  United  States  troops  in  the  vicinity  assembled 
in  this  grove,  and  there  one  of  the  officers  read  to  the 
group  President  Lincoln's  Emancipation  Proclamation, 
which  took  effect  that  day.  As  the  last  words  left  the 
speaker's  lips,  there  burst  forth  the  hymn,  "  My  countr}^, 
^t  is  of  thee.''  From  this  moment  it  was  their  country 
also.  The  war  was  only  half  over,  but  in  those  sea 
islands  the  battle  of  Hilton  Head  had  restored  the  con- 
trol of  the  United  States  government. 

Mr.  Clarke  felt  a  personal  interest  in  the  people  on 
Old  Fort  plantation,  having  heard  the  story  of  their 
lives  from  Miss  Botume,^  and  now  he  walked  about  the 
place  and  saw  them  peacefully  cultivating  their  little 
patches  of  ground.  One  woman,  who  was  at  work  near 
the  schoolhouse,  invited  Mr.  Clarke  to  plant  some  cot- 
ton-seed, and  said  she  would  send  him  the  first  ripe 
boll,  which  promise  she  fulfilled. 

Their  next  visit  was  to  Miss  Laura  Towne  on  St. 
Helena  island.  When  the  sea  islands  had  come  back 
into  the  possession  of  the  United  States  government, 
Miss  Towne  had  gone  down  there  to  remain  for  life 
with  the  freed-peopie,  to  teach  and  counsel  and  in  every 
way  help  them  in  their  efforts  to  rise  in  the  world. 

On  the  island  was  a  church  which  before  the  war  had 
been  used  by  the  planters,  not  however  to  the  exclusion 

^  One  good  old  man,  Smart  Washingion,  had  by  liis  labor  accumu- 
lated enough  to  build  a  little  cabin,  and  he  and  his  wife  took  in  a 
paralytic  woman,  who  had  no  claim  upon  them  except  her  helplessness. 
One  day,  when  "  Uncle  Smart  "  was  at  work  elsewhere,  his  little  cabin 
took  fire,  and  as  the  efforts  of  the  occupants  were  all  needed  to  save 
the  paralytic,  it  was  burned  to  the  ground.  When  the  old  man  re- 
turned and  saw  the  ashes  of  his  much-prized  little  home  he  bowed  his 
head  and  said  ;  ''  If  it  be  Him  Avill  it  ought  to  be  my  pleasure,  and 
it  shall  be."  It  is  perhaps  unnecessary  to  add  that  when  Mr.  Clarke 
told  the  story  from  his  pulpit,  and  added  that  a  hundred  dollars 
would  build  another  cabin,  the  church  responded  by  sending  the  old 
man  that  sum  and  something  over  for  other  necessaries. 


VARIED  ACTIVITIES.  349 

of  the  colored  people,  for  a  place  in  the  cluiveh  had 
been  set  apart  for  them.  Now  the  congregation  was 
wholly  of  colored  people  and  their  teachers  from  the 
North.  The  pulpit  was  usually  occupied  by  a  colored 
minister ;  but  he,  on  being  introduced  to  Mr.  Clarke, 
politely  invited  him  to  take  his  place  on  the  following 
Sunday.  That,  as  it  happened,  was  Easter,  and  also 
Mr.  Clarke's  birthday,  and  away  from  his  own  pulpit 
and  people  he  was  glad  of  the  opportunity  offered  him 
of  preaching  in  the  church  on  St.  Helena. 

He  remained  over  Monday,  in  order  to  be  present  at  a 
monthly  meeting  of  an  organization  formed  among  the 
children  to  promote  temperance. 

During  a  drive  on  St.  Helena  island  a  dwelling-house 
was  pointed  out,  from  the  upper  balconies  of  which  the 
families  of  the  planters  had  watched  the  battle  of  Hil- 
ton Head,  on  the  issue  of  which  depended  their  con- 
tinued possession  of  their  homes  or  their  flight  to  "the 
Main." 

Mr.  Clarke  spent  some  weeks  in  North  Carolina,  and 
returned  by  Eichmond,  Washington,  and  Philadelphia, 
reaching  home  May  22d.  He  was  in  his  pulpit  on 
AYliitsunday,  which  was  the  24th. 

TO    HIS    SISTER. 

October  26,  1874. 
.  .  .  We  were  beginning  to  wonder  a  little  where  you 
were,  and  what  doing.  .  .  .  Your  letter  explained  what 
we  might  have  understood :  that  when  one  goes  in  pur- 
suit of  Dante  through  the  mysterious  recesses  of  the 
Apennines,  where  he  seemed  to  love  to  hide  himself, 
one  is  apt  to  get  away  from  post-offices  and  such  mod- 
ern contrivances.  AVhy  did  he  journey  off  to  such  an 
extent  ?  Why  did  he  write  his  "  Divine  Comedy  "  in 
such  a  multitude  of  castles,  and  climb  the  stairs  of  the 
stranger  to  such  an  amazing  extent  ?  But  I  suppose 
that  in  those  days  any  one  in  Italy  opposed  to  the  pope 


350  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

was  hunted  about  very  severely  and  hardly  knew  where 
to  lay  his  head.  .  .  .  Since  I  last  wrote  you  I  have  been 
to  the  Unitarian  Conference  at  Saratoga,  to  Chicago 
and  Milwaukee  with  Cora,  to  Portland,  to  the  Republi- 
can Convention  at  AVorcester,  to  Keene,  N.  H.,  to 
preach,  to  the  top  of  Monadnock,  to  Lowell  to  preach, 
and  to  Concord,  N.  H.,  to  a  wedding.  .  .  . 

TO    HIS    SISTER. 

June  6,  1876. 

I  received  your  good,  long  letter  on  my  return  from 
Kentucky,  where  I  went  with  Cora  and  Eliot,  and  stayed 
at  the  house  of  Philip  and  Emma  Speed.  I  was  glad  to 
have  my  children  see  the  kind  friends  of  my  earlier 
days,  who  continue  as  kind  as  ever,  and,  with  their  chil- 
dren, welcomed  mine  with  all  their  old  Kentucky  hospi- 
tality. After  having  assisted  at  a  Western  conference 
of  Unitarians  I  went  with  E.  and  C.  to  the  Mammoth 
Cave,  which  they  both  enjoyed.  Then  C.  and  I  re- 
turned to  Philadelphia  and  spent  a  week  with  Tom,  go- 
ing every  day  to  the  exhibition,  which  is  certainly  an 
extraordinary  and  wonderful  sight.  It  is  "  the  Parlia- 
ment of  man,  the  federation  of  the  world." 

The  nations  from  all  the  five  continents  and  all  the 
islands  have  met  in  a  grand  cordial  emulation  in  doing 
the  works  of  peace,  —  "  Parthians,  Medes,  and  Elam- 
ites,"  speaking  in  one  tongue  of  useful  labor. 

I  go  again  to  Cincinnati  this  week  as  a  delegate  to 
the  convention  of  E-epublicans  to  select  a  candidate  for 
the  presidency.  We  shall  try  to  get  a  good  man  this 
time. 

TO    J.    T.    FIELDS. 

Jamaica  Pu^in,  August  19,  1876. 
.  .  .  Mrs.  Clarke  and  I  are  to  go  to  the  Adirondacks 
on  Tuesday.     Then  farewell,  for  a  time,  bustle  and  busi- 
ness, fuss  and  free-trade,  preaching  and  politics,  saving 
the  Old  South,  and  such  like  vanities.     Welcome,  then, 


VARIED  ACTIVITIES.  351 

long  solitary  rows  on  the  lakes  framed  in  lonely  moun- 
tains, sweet  sleep  on  hemlock  boughs,  unbroken  days, 
with  time  enough  and  to  spare,  days  not  chopped  up 
into  mince  -  meat  by  the  multitudinous  avocations, 
thicker  than  leaves  in  Vallombrosa.  We  shall  return, 
no  doubt,  homesick  for  all  these  tormenting  daily 
cares  ;  homesick  also  for  our  friends,  among  whom  we 
gratefully  reckon  yourself  and  the  fair  lady  whom  you 
call  "  The  Dame." 

TO    HIS    SISTER, 

December  3,  1876. 

...  I  sent  you  my  Thanksgiving  sermon,  in  which, 
as  you  may  see,  I  said  a  good  word  for  our  Southern 
brethren.  I  have  received  several  letters  about  it, 
mostly  approving ;  among  others,  one  from  that  old  anti- 
slavery  war  horse,  Parker  Pillsbury,  who  thanks  me 
warmly  for  it. 

.  .  .  This  has  been  my  '^  Annus  Politicus,"  and  I  am 
glad  it  has  come  to  its  end.  It  is  curious  that  I,  who 
dislike  politics,  and  have  so  much  else  to  do  that  I  like, 
should  be  dragged  into  it,  nolens  volens. 

TO    E.    E.    HALE. 

September  29,  1877. 

Dear  Edward,  —  Why  do  you  ask  me  to  do  for  love 
of  you  what  I  cannot  do  because  the  "  stern  daughter  of 
the  voice  of  God  "  has  given  me  something  else  to  do  ? 

I  should  have  enjoyed  going  to  Springfield  ;  I  should 
three  times  over  have  enjoyed  doing  anything  for  you, 
but  I  was  obliged  to  deny  myself  the  meeting  because 
of  the  absolute  necessity  at  this  season  of  avoiding  dis- 
tractions, and  keeping  my  poor  brain  to  its  Avork.  For 
the  time  is  short  in  which  I  am  to  finish  my  tasks,  and 
there  are,  at  this  season,  somewhat  less  than  twelve 
hours  in  the  day. 

Therefore  sadl}^  and  unwillingly,  but  as  one  who  has 
profited  by  James  Walker's  teaching,  I  am  obliged  to 
say  No,  but  am  still  yours,  James. 


352  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 


TO    HIS    SISTER. 

Ajyril  6, 1878. 
...  I  went  on  Thursday  evening  to  our  club,  where 
Prof.  A.  Agassiz  gave  a  highly  interesting  account  of 
his  deep-sea  dredging  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  .  .  .  We 
also  had  an  interesting  account  of  the  fur-seal  islands 
off  Alaska.  .  .  .  But  the  most  extraordinary  feature  of 
our  club  this  evening  was  the  exhibition,  by  Professor 
Dalton,  of  a  phonograph.  ...  It  seemed  a  pure  piece 
of  magic,  and  when  I  thought  of  this  realization  of 
Munchausen's  story  of  the  notes  frozen  in  a  bugle, 
I  saw  that  imagination  could  conceive  of  nothing  which 
science  would  not  realize. 

TO    HIS    SISTER. 

April  11, 1878. 
...  I  send  you  herewith  a  curiosity,  some  of  the 
first  cotton  raised  by  free  labor  on  Jefferson  Davis's 
plantation  in  Mississippi.  When  our  troops  got  posses- 
sion of  the  country  one  of  Davis's  slaves,  named  Dick 
Montgomery,  a  very  smart  fellow,  bought  his  master's 
plantation,  to  which  he  afterwards  added  two  more. 
This  cotton  was  some  of  the  first  raised  by  him,  and 
was  brought  to  me  by  a  friend,  Mr.  Lombard,  who  also 
told  me  that  this  Montgomery  became  rich,  and  when 
Jefferson  Davis  once  came  to  a  place  on  the  river  near 
the  plantation,  IMontgomery  went  in  his  carriage  and 
brought  his  old  master  and  friends  to  the  new  house  he 
had  built  on  the  site  of  the  old  one,  which  our  troops 
had  burned.  He  gave  them  a  sumptuous  entertainment, 
and  insisted  on  waiting  at  table  as  of  old.  This  is  an 
example  of  the  delicacy  and  real  gentlemanly  feeling 
often  found  among  the  colored  people. 

Mr.  Clarke's  seventieth  year  found  him  in  the  full 
enjoyment  of  active  work.     But  perhaps  its  approach 


VARIED  ACTIVITIES.  353 

had  reminded  him  that  he  must  not  delay  putting  into 
outward  shape  those  books  that  he  most  wished  to 
finish.  The  publication  of  these,  as  he  approached  the 
year  1880,  came  at  shorter  intervals.  In  1877,  he 
printed  a  volume  of  sermons,"  Go  up  Higher."  In  1878 
were  published  "  Memorial  and  Biographical  Sketches," 
"  Essentials  and  Non-Essentials,"  and  the  little  bookj 
"  How  to  Find  the  Stars."  In  1874  came  "  Common- 
Sense  in  Religion." 

His  seventieth  birthday  was  kept  by  a  happy  meet- 
ing of  his  friends  at  the  Church  of  the  Disciples.  It 
was  a  pleasure  to  him  that  his  life-long  friend,  William 
Henry  Channing,  was  able  to  be  present.  When  he  and 
others,  among  whom  were  Kev.  Henry  W.  Foote,  Mrs. 
Julia  Ward  Howe,  and  Dr.  0.  W.  Holmes,  had  brought 
tributes  of  friendship  in  poem,  song,  and  story,  Mr. 
Clarke  himself  was  asked  to  let  them  hear  his  voice. 

After  dwelling  for  a  few  moments  on  the  earlier  in- 
cidents and  influences  of  his  life,  he  said :  — 

On  leaving  college  I  hesitated  about  a  profession,  at 
first  intending  to  study  law.  I  cannot  be  too  thankful 
that  I  was  finally  led  to  decide  for  the  ministry.  !N"ever 
for  an  hour  have  I  regretted  it.  To  spend  one's  life  in 
communion  with  the  loftiest  themes  of  thought,  to  have 
work  bringing  us  into  intercourse  with  the  wise  and 
good  of  all  times,  to  be  offered  year  after  year  opportu- 
nities of  helping  and  blessing  our  fellow-men,  to  be  able 
sometimes  to  be  a  mediator  to  others  of  God's  truth 
and  grace  —  what  can  be  a  better  lot  than  this  ? 

I  do  not  mean  to  say,  by  any  means,  that  I  have 
always  accomplished,  or  even  attempted,  the  good  I 
might  have  done.  Looking  back  to-day,  I  see  enough 
of  time  lost,  opportunities  neglected. 

"  Let  the  thick  curtain  fall; 
I  better  know  than  all 
How  little  I  liave  g-ained, 
How  vast  the  unattained." 


354  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

I  am  thankful  that  I  was  brought  up  among  Unita- 
rians. ...  I  have  never  known  the  clay  when  God.  did 
not  seem  to  me  a  Father  and  Friend,  Christ  a  human 
brother  and  heavenly  teacher,  and  life  made  for  perpet- 
ual progress.  ...  If  sometimes  life  has  seemed  a  bur- 
den and  the  way  dark,  I  have  never  blamed  Providence 
or  destiny.     For  this  I  thank  my  training. 

I  am  thankful,  too,  that  when  the  time  came  for  me 
to  begin  my  work  as  a  minister,  I  did  not  remain  in 
IS^ew  England,  but  went  out  to  Kentucky,  and  there 
stayed  seven  years.  ...  It  was  a  good  thing  to  speak 
to  people  who  were  unaccustomed  to  the  thoughts  fa- 
miliar to  me.  I  could  thus  test  and  try  all  I  knew  and 
see  what  it  amounted  to.  I  was  deprived  of  my  usual 
supports,  and  had  to  depend  on  myself.  I  was  sur- 
rounded by  those  who  thought  my  creed  only  infidelity 
under  another  name,  and  others  to  whom  all  religion 
seemed  only  a  sham  or  folly.  This  was  hard,  but  use- 
ful as  a  discipline.  I  could  take  nothing  for  granted  ; 
I  must  be  able  to  give  a  reason  for  everything  I  be- 
lieved. And  I  also  found  there  noble  friends,  generous 
and  loving  hearts,  whose  friendship  has  been  a  joy  to 
me  always. 

And  I  am  glad  that,  when  I  left  Kentucky  and  re- 
turned to  New  England,  instead  of  being  settled  in  an 
old  church,  I  united  with  friends  in  forming  a  new  one. 
.  .  .  This  church  was  founded  in  April,  1841,  with 
forty-eight  members.  Its  creed  was  faith  in  Jesus  as  a 
teacher  and  master,  its  aim  the  study  and  practice  of 
Christianity.  We  have  worked  together  in  this  spirit 
and  purpose  during  nearly  forty  years,  and  I  think  our 
church  has  done  some  good,  —  not  so  much  as  we  might 
and  ought  to  have  done,  but  yet  something.  I  have  had 
great  joy  in  this  church,  and  have  been  helj)ed  by  it  in 
many  ways. 

The  seashore  had  a  great  attraction  for  Mr.  Clarke, 


VABIED  ACTIVITIES.  Si^O 

and  in  1879  lie  had  built  a  house  on  one  of  the  hcad- 
iauds  of  Cape  Ann,  twenty-seven  miles  from  Boston. 
From  that  time  his  summers  were  all  passed  at  this  sea- 
shore home,  with  the  exception  of  the  one  spent  in 

Magnolia,  Massachusetts,  July,  1880. 
Magnolia  super  Mare,  Magnolia  by  the  Sea;  so  called 
because  the  swamp  magnolia  grows  and  flourishes  near 
by  in  the  depths  of  the  wild  woods  of  Cape  Ann.     Like 
tiie  rest  of  this  romantic  coast,  it  combines  magnificent 
rocks  and  cliifs  with  umbrageous  woods  and  far-resound- 
ing shores.      Here  one  can  take  his  rest  aloof  from 
care     As  I  sit  on  a  piazza  facing  the  blue  ocean,  see 
the  white  surf  on  Kettle  Island,  hear  the  long  roll  on 
the  beach  close  by,  I  feel  as  if  all  the  anxiety  and 
worry  of  life  were  far  away.     Here  it  is  always  after- 
noon. 

TO    S.    C.    C. 

August  \h,  1880. 
To  hear  from  you,  or  Sarah,  or  Abraham,  always 
makes  me  happy  for  the  rest  of  the  day.  I  ~-;f  °* 
a  certain  feeling  of  content,  which,  ^^'^^^^ ^\^;;Xh'l 
resolves  itself  into  the  influence  of  your  lettei  A\hat 
a  blessing  it  is  that  we  should  have  been  spared  so  long 
to  each  other,  and  that  we  should  never  have  had  any 
of  those  estrlngements  which  are  not  infrequent  m 

"tie  enjoying  our  quiet  and  lovely  home  here  very 
much.  AH  around  is  ocean,  old  gray  -f  ^.  de^p  f-en 
tolia-e  of  the  most  luxuriant  masses  of  thick-set  bushes 
a^r^ines,  which  are  crowded  so  close  as  to  make  an 
almost  impenetrable  barrier,  exeept  where  a  ooM,ath 
goes  through.  I  am  now  sitting  (6  A.  M.)  on  he  p  - 
Lza;  and  as  I  write  I  look  up  and  see  the  long  stretch 
of  pale  blue  ocean  before  me,  with  a  vast  sky  of  ten  lei 
clouds.  To  the  left  is  the  curving  beach,  on  which  t  e 
pulse  of  ocean  beats  regularly  in  slow  throbs  of  heaNy 


356  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

surf  waves.     We  are  expecting  a  visit  from  tlie  sea- 
serpent,  for  he  is  at  present  cruising  round  this  cape. 

In  the  winter  of  1880-81,  he  gave  at  the  Lowell  In- 
stitute a  course  of  lectures,  which  were  published  soon 
after  under  the  title  of  "Events  and  Epochs  in  Eeli- 
gious  History."  His  topics  included  the  life  and  timet 
of  St.  Augustine,  Savonarola,  Luther,  Wesley,  George 
Fox,  the  Christian  Monks,  the  Buddhist  Monks,  the 
Huguenots,  Jeanne  d'Arc,  and  an  account  of  the  Cata- 
combs. Stereopticon  illustrations  of  these  last  were 
given,  and  also  of  the  rock-cut  temples  of  Central  Asia, 
and  of  abbeys,  monasteries,  etc.  Anything  which  in- 
terested him  in  his  studies  he  wanted  to  communicate 
to  others.  Of  the  life  of  Jeanne  d'Arc  he  had  made 
careful  study  at  an  earlier  period,  and  in  addition  to 
such  authorities  as  were  to  be  found  in  our  public  libra- 
ries, he  had  obtained,  from  France,  Wallon's  account 
of  her  trial,  —  every  question  addressed  to  her,  every 
answer  made  by  the  poor  maiden,  brave  when  facing 
the  terrors  of  war,  but  finding  it  harder  to  meet  the 
cruel  looks  of  her  accusers  and  judges. 


CHAPTEE  XIX. 

CLOSING    YEARS. 

1881-1888. 

Ix  the  year  1881  came  the  fortieth  anniversary  of  the 
Church  of  the  Disciples.  On  the  27th  of  April,  the 
birthday  of  the  church  was  celebrated  by  an  assembly 
of  the  congregation  which  was  large,  united,  and  enthu- 
siastic. There  appeared  no  sign  of  any  decline  of 
strength  on  the  part  of  the  minister  as  he  entered  upon 
his  seventy-first  year.  On  Sundays  he  often  preached 
twice,  and  except  in  his  summer  vacation,  conducted 
two  classes.  He  completed  and  published  "  Thomas 
Didymus  "  ^  and  "  Events  and  Epochs  in  Religious 
History."  In  February,  he  visited  Washington,  and 
preached  there,  and  in  March,  in  October,  and  again  in 
November,  he  visited  New  York.  In  June  he  went  to 
Grand  Manan,  and  later  in  the  summer  to  Newport ;  but 
he  spent  most  of  the  summer  at  Magnolia.  He  pre- 
pared in  the  first  half  of  the  year  twelve  written  lec- 
tures on  St.  Paul,  which  he  delivered  at  his  church. 
He  also  conducted  two  classes  — one  in  the  evening  for 
men,  and  one  in  the  daytime  for  women  —  on  Christian 
history,  taking  one  century  at  each  lesson. 

And  the  picture  of  those  years  of  his  life  of  which 
we  have  spoken  in  earlier  chapters  is  incomplete  unless 
one  recalls  the  talk,  serious  or  slight,  which  went  on  in 
the  ofiice  of  "  The  Atlantic  Monthly,"  or  in  the  contrib- 
utors' reading-room.  Mr.  Lowell  had  edited  that  maga- 
zine for  years,  and  after  him  Mr.  Fields.  In  his  remi- 
^  Afterwards  called  Life  and  Times  of  Jesus. 


358  DIARY  AND  COEBESPONDENCE. 

niscences,  Mr.  Fields  lias  shown  sometliing  of  liis  own 
humor,  and  of  that  range  of  recollection  which  made 
him  the  most  charming  of  story-tellers  and  conversers. 
From  the  "  Old  Corner  Book  -  Store/'  at  the  foot  of 
School  Street,  the  publishers  had  removed  to  what  was 
called  the  "  new  corner,"  where  Hamilton  Place  opens 
from  Tremont  Street.  In  a  pleasant  parlor  overlooking 
the  Common,  the  favored  contributors  might  find  the 
latest  books  or  magazines,  might  make  an  appointment, 
or  write  their  letters.  Best  of  all,  they  met  each  other 
there ;  and  of  the  little  group  who  dropped  in  as  they 
went  up-town  and  down-town,  it  may  well  be  imagined 
that  none  were  more  welcome  than  Mr.  Clarke.  I  re- 
member an  occasion  when,  meeting  Dr.  Holmes  there, 
I  offered  to  tell  him  of  an  "  astonishing  coincidence." 
He  defied  me  to  tell  one  so  remarkable  as  something 
which  had  just  happened  in  his  experience.  We  ar- 
ranged an  impromptu  eclogue  on  the  moment,  in  which 
Mr.  Clarke  was  appointed  to  be  the  Palsemon  who 
should  decide  in  our  great  discussion.^ 

The  Examiner  Club  is  a  favorite  club  for  conversation 
in  Boston.  It  was  formed  in  the  year  1870,  and  Mr. 
Clarke  was  one  of  its  first  members.  At  the  time  of 
his  death  he  was  the  president.  The  New  Englander 
will  readily  see  the  interest  of  a  club  in  which,  not  to 
speak  of  men  still  living.  Governor  Andrew,  Mr.  Emer- 
son, Mr.  G.  P.  Bradford,  Dr.  E.  H.  Clarke,  James  Free- 
man Clarke,  Mr.  Goddard  of  the  "Advertiser,"  Mr. 
Henry  James,  Professor  Rogers  of  the  School  of  Tech- 
nology, and  Mr.  Whipple  were  active  members.  Yet 
again,  the  Thursday  Club  interested  him,  and  often 
were  glad  of  the  services  which  he  so  willingly  ren- 
dered.    This  is  a  club  of  one  hundred  of  the  most  active 

1  Both  Dr.  Holmes  and  I  were  at  this  time  story-tellers  for  the 
magazine.  The  truth  of  history  requires  me  to  state  that  Mr.  Clarke 
awarded  the  premium  to  neither  of  us,  but  gave  it  to  Mr.  Aldrich, 
who  had  interjected  a  third  story. 


CLOSING   YEABS.  359 

men  of  the  time  who  live  in  Boston  or  the  neighbor- 
hood. It  is  their  business  to  keep  each  other  informed 
of  the  last  news  in  science,  art,  and  literature,  as  they 
learn  of  it  in  their  different  occupations.  In  the  in- 
timacies of  this  club,  Mr.  Clarke's  contributions  were 
generally  of  subjects  bearing  on  education  or  history. 
In  preparing  this  volume,  we  have  availed  ourselves  of 
notes  which  he  made  for  some  of  his  historical  reminis- 
cences at  its  meetings. 

The  year  1882  begins  with  the  course  of  lectures  on 
the  "  Religions  of  the  World,"  delivered  in  the  Lowell 
Institute.  The  regular  Sunday  services  go  on,  and  the 
attendance  at  meetings  of  the  college  overseers,  the  li- 
brary trustees,  and  other  boards.  On  the  30th  of  April 
he  took  part  in  the  services  at  Mr.  Emerson's  funeral. 
In  March  he  made  a  visit  to  Washington,  where  he 
preached  on  two  Sundays.  On  the  13th  of  IMay,  he 
sailed  on  the  "  Atlas  "  for  Europe,  with  Mrs.  Clarke  and 
one  of  his  daughters.  He  had  accepted  an  invitation  to 
preach  before  the  British  and  Foreign  Unitarian  Associ- 
ation on  their  fifty-fifth  anniversary.  .  His  visit  in  Lon- 
don was  made  very  agreeable  by  the  society  of  people 
whom  he  was  glad  to  meet.  The  party  then  visited 
Paris,  spent  a  month  in  Switzerland,  returned  by  the 
Ehine  to  England,  and  he  was  in  Boston  again  on  the 
12th  of  September.  He  went  to  the  Unitarian  confer- 
ence at  Saratoga  the  next  week,  and  made  a  visit  in 
New  York. 

In  the  next  year,  1883,  the  entry  "Bad  cold''  ap- 
pears frequently  in  the  diary,  and  gives  the  first  signal 
of  failing  strength.  There  is  one  stormy  Sunday,  when 
he  did  not  go  to  church  in  the  afternoon,  —  the  first 
entry  of  that  kind  which  I  have  noted.  But  the  regu- 
lar service  at  church  continues  unbroken.  The  morn- 
ing sermons  for  the  months  of  winter  and  spring  were 
a  course  on  Unitarian  belief.  In  the  same  year  he  col- 
lected and  revised  for  press  the  materials  for  a  course 


360  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

of  talks  on  anti-slaver}^  days,  which  had  interested  large 
companies.  The  second  volume  of  "  Ten  Great  Keli- 
gions  "  was  published.  He  wrote  a  "  Manual  of  Uni- 
tarian Belief,"  which  has  since  had  a  wide  circulation. 
He  made  visits  to  New  York,  to  Xewport,  and  to  Mead- 
ville,  spending  the  summer  months  mostly  at  Magnolia, 
On  the  6th  of  October  is  a  note  that  he  attended  a 
"  meeting  of  Independents,"  at  Young's  Hotel. 

The  21st  of  July  was  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  his 
preaching  that  first  sermon  on  the  duty  next  our  hand. 
He  notes  the  anniversary,  and  on  that  day  begins  the 
Autobiography  which  the  reader  has  enjoyed. 

He  was  now  obliged  to  hold  himself  a  little  in  check, 
and  to  feel  that  he  could  no  longer  do  what  he  did  when 
he  was  a  young  man.  But  the  services  at  church  are 
performed  with  unbroken  regularity  through  1884.  In 
the  spring  he  made  a  visit  to  his  invalid  brother  at  ]\Ia- 
rietta,  in  Georgia,  and  on  the  way  preached  in  Wash- 
ington and,  on  successive  Sundays,  in  Atlanta  and  New 
York. 

Mr.  Clarke  was  dissatisfied  with  the  nomination  of 
the  Bepublican  convention  in  July,  and  placed  himself 
at  once  on  record  as  one  who  would  not  support  it.  He 
believed  that  the  old  issues  between  North  and  South, 
which  had  governed  the  politics  of  the  country  since 
the  beginning  of  the  century,  were  substantially  settled. 
He  was  especially  interested  in  civil-service  reform  and 
in  every  action  which  looked  toward  the  rescue  of 
official  appointments  from  machine  politics.  At  first 
there  seemed  reason  to  fear  that  he  might  have  to  stand 
apart  from  his  old  anti-slavery  friends  in  his  determi- 
nation not  to  vote  with  the  Republican  party ;  but,  as 
it  proved,  he  did  not  stand  alone.  He  united  with  some 
of  his  anti-slavery  friends  and  with  other  gentlemen 
who  had  heretofore  acted  with  the  Republicans.  They 
did  not  organize  as  a  party,  but  preferred  to  consider 
themselves  Independents ;  and  by  this  name  they  came 


CLOSING    YEARS.  361 

to  be  kno^vn  in  the  political  world.  Eventually,  they 
determined  to  unite  with  the  Democrats  in  the  election 
of  ^Ir.  Cleveland. 

To  satisfy  himself  as  to  Mr.  Cleveland's  position  and 
intentions,  he  visited  him  at  Albany.  When  he  re- 
turned from  Albany  to  the  Unitarian  national  confer- 
ence at  Saratoga,  he  was  asked  by  a  few  of  the  minis- 
ters there  to  give  them  his  impressions.  They  met  in 
a  private  room,  and  from  more  than  one  of  those  pres- 
ent on  that  occasion  we  learn  that  Mr.  Clarke  said,  in 
substance,  that  he  was  convinced  Mr.  Cleveland  was  an 
honest,  hard-working,  capable  man,  who  believed  in 
civil-service  reform,  and  had  sufficient  strength  of  pur- 
pose to  be  true  to  it  in  spite  of  outside  pressure.  For 
this  reason  he  felt  it  his  duty  to  support  him. 

He  found  at  the  end  of  the  canvass  that  he  was  not 
in  the  minority  of  the  people  of  the  country,  as  he  had 
expected  to  be,  but  that  the  Independents  and  their 
allies  had  succeeded. 

The  parish  work,  which  he  would  never  willingly 
forego,  continues,  and  the  diary  was  never  more  full  of 
subjects  for  sermons  than  in  this  year.  But  it  seems 
to  me  to  show  some  signs  of  fatigue.  There  is  the 
"bad  cold"  again  occasionally,  and  the  entries  are 
shorter  and  fewer  than  in  earlier  years.  It  is  pathetic 
to  see  four  such  entries  as  these  together  :  — 

Friday.     Bad  cold.     Stay  at  home  all  day. 

Saturday.     At  home  all  day. 

Sunday.  Thermometer  minus  4°.  Sermon  on  "Vis 
inertiae  [as  if  he  knew  anything  about  it !] :  its  good 
and  evil  in  nature  and  in  life." 

Monday.     My  cold  continues.     At  home  all  day. 

On  the  24th  of  January,  1885,  he  conducted,  at  Ar- 
lington Street  Church,  the  funeral  services  of  his  life- 
long friend  and  companion  in  study,  William  Henry 
Channincr. 


362  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

On  the  21st  of  the  month  he  went  to  New  York,  and 
was  present  that  evening  at  a  meeting  of  the  Harvard 
Club.     The'  visit  was  only  for  a  few  days. 

His  determination  to  work  steadily  in  composition 
apj)ears  from  the  memorandum  that  his  amanuensis  is 
to  attend  two  hours  each  day  for  four  days  in  the  week. 
His  seventy-fifth  birthday  was  celebrated  by  the  Church 
of  the  Disciples  in  a  re-union  at  the  church,  of  three 
or  four  hundred  persons,  and  he  marks  it  as  "  very 
pleasant." 

On  the  centenary  of  the  introduction  at  King's 
Chapel  of  the  Revised  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  the 
12th  of  April,  1885,  he  was  present  at  that  church,  and 
gave  an  address  on  the  life  of  his  grandfather.  Dr. 
Preeman,  Avho  arranged  that  book  of  service,  and  was 
for  near  half  a  century  the  minister  of  that  church. 

On  the  11th  of  May,  1885,  there  met  at  Hartford, 
Connecticut,  a  "  Congress  of  Churches."  It  originated 
in  the  catholic  wish  of  some  Broad  Church  Episcopa- 
lians and  liberal  Orthodox  Congregationalists  to  bring 
about  a  better  understanding  between  different  Protes- 
tant communions  in  America,  or  at  least  among  their 
members.  They  had  the  courage  and  consistency^  to  in» 
vite  Mr.  Clarke..  And  no  occasion  could  have  given 
him  more  satisfaction,  or  been  more  in  harmony  with 
the  spirit  of  the  work  of  his  life.  On  the  13th  he  read 
to  this  congress  a  paper  on  "  The  Historical  Christ  as 
the  Centre  of  Christian  Theology." 

He  spent  the  summer  at  his  happy  home  at  Magno- 
lia, enjoying,  almost  every  day,  his  favorite  recreations 
of  walking,  driving,  and  sailing.  On  the  5th  of  July, 
the  entry  in  his  diary  is,  "  Up  at  4.30.  5  to  7,  writing 
sermon.  10.30,  preach  dedication  sermon  of  Union 
Chapel  [at  Magnolia].  Chapel  crowded.  Letters  in 
evening." 

On  the  16th  of  August,  the  tireless  entries  in  the 
diary  are  :  — 


CLOSING   YEARS.  363 

Things  to  be  done  this  winter  :  — 
1.  Books.      (a)  Ticknor's    [the   publisher]   book   on 
Self-Development. 

(b)  A.  U.  A.  Sursum  Corda. 

(c)  Ellis'  [the  publisher]  Vexed  Questions. 

(d)  Previous  Questions. 

Things  to  be  done  in  the  church  this  winter  :  — 

1.  Afternoon  Bible-class  on  Monday. 

2.  S.  S.  lectures  on  Picturesque  Palestine. 

3.  Literary  lectures,  on  Wednesday  evenings,  on  such 
subjects  as  Spenser,  Milton's  "  Areopagitica,"  Bacon's 
"  Advancement,"  Sir  T.  Browne,  Byron,  Shelley,  Cole- 
ridge, Goldsmith,  Gray,  etc. 

4.  Sermons  on  special  subjects,  same  as  "Previous 
Questions." 

The  Sunday  services  at  the  Church  of  the  Disciples  are 
renewed  on  the  13th  of  September,  when  he  preached  a 
sermon,  "  What  is  a  church  for  ?  "  Sometimes  the 
diary  notes  —  what  it  might  often  have  noted  —  "a 
large  congregation."  It  should  be  remembered  that 
this  means  eight  or  nine  hundred  persons.  In  the 
afternoons  he  meets  a  "  class  of  young  men."  And  he 
now  begins  the  preparation  for  his  Palestine  lectures, 
as  indicated  in  the  plan  made  in  August.  There  is  no 
break  in  the  parish  duties,  —  indeed,  they  seem,  if  pos- 
sible, more  sedulously  cared  for  than  ever.  One  notes 
the  advanced  age  of  the  persons  whose  funerals  he  at- 
tends. The  friends  who  united  in  young  life  to  form  ? 
living  church  are  passing  to  higher  life. 

In  1886,  the  steady  line  of  his  out-door  work  is  twice 
interrupted  by  "  jaundice,"  of  which  an  earlier  attack 
had  been  noted  in  1885.  But  an  attack  of  illness  seems 
to  mean  little  more  to  him  than  staying  at  home.  The 
end  of  the  year  notes,  "  Books  published  in  1886 : 
'  Every-Day  IReligion '  (a  volume  of  sermons),  '  Vexed 
Questions,'  and  '  The  Problem  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.'  " 


364  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

There  is  an  entry  of  letters  written,  "  from  900  to  1,000," 
—  a  pathetic  and  lamentable  contrast  to  the  happier 
entries  of  earlier  years,  when  he  wrote  letters  because 
he  wanted  to.  He  is  now  experiencing  the  weight  of 
correspondence,  w^hich  St.  Marc  Girardin  so  well  calls 
"the  burden  of  our  modern  civilization,"  —  a  burden 
so  heavy  that  men  wonder  whether  Eowland  Hill  Avere, 
indeed,  a  benefactor  of  his  kind. 

The  "  First  Unitarian  Society  "  in  Philadelphia  were 
to  dedicate  their  new  church  building  on  the  evening  of 
Tuesday,  February  9,  1886,  and  a  conference  of  the 
ministers  and  others  assembled  on  that  occasion  was  to 
be  held  during  the  two  succeeding  days.  Mr.  Clarke 
was  invited  by  Eev.  Joseph  May,  pastor  of  the  Phila- 
delphia society,  to  preach  the  dedication  sermon.  He 
arrived  in  Philadelphia  on  the  Saturday  previous,  and 
on  Sunday  preached  twice  for  Mr.  Mangasarian,  an 
Armenian  who  had  lately  established  an  independent 
church  in  Philadelphia.  On  Monday  he  called  on  Dr. 
Purness  and  a  number  of  other  friends.  When  Tues- 
day came  he  had  a  hoarse  cold,  but  by  remaining  quietly 
in-doors  all  day  he  was  able  in  the  evening  to  give  the 
sermon  which  he  had  prepared  for  the  occasion.^  He 
was  to  have  taken  part  in  the  conference,  but  this  satis- 
faction was  made  impossible  by  the  state  of  his  throat, 
and  on  the  morning  of  the  tenth  he  left  for  New  York, 
and  after  resting  there  for  a  night,  reached  home  on  the 
eleventh. 

On  the  following  Sunday  he  preached  in  his  own 
pulpit. 

The  summer,  as  was  usual  with  him  now,  was  spent 
at  Magnolia ;  and  the  more  regular  course  of  life  was 
broken  only  by  a  visit  to  Newport.  When  the  autumn's 
work  began  he  organized  a  temperance  union  in  his 
church,  and  he  also  mentions,  Avith  interest,  addressing 

1  His  diary  of  the  Wednesday  previous  was,  "  Up  at  4.30  [a.  m.], 
writing  sermon  for  Philadelphia." 


CLOSING   YEARS.  365 

a  full  house  one  night  at  the  Howard  Athenaeum,  a 
theatre  in  the  heart  of  Boston  ;  "  not  one  half  of  them 
regular  church  attendants." 

It  is  a  manly  record  of  determination  to  do  his  duty 
to  the  last.     It  is  not  until  the  6th  of  February,  1887, 
that  he  gives  up  preaching.     For  the  rest  of  that  winter 
and  through  the  spring  the  pulpit  of  the  Church  of  the 
Disciples,  from  which  he  had  seldom  been  absent,  was 
supplied  by  the  ministry  of  different  friends.     He  was 
not  confined  to  the  house,  nor  did  he  shrink  from  occu- 
pation.    During  forty  days  of  this  confinement  there  is 
mention  of  a  hundred  and  ten  letters  written  by  him. 
And  a  sermon  was  regularly  sent  to  the  "  Gazette,"  for 
that  larger  congregation  which  read  his  words  every 
week,  in  other  parts  of  the  world.     He  continued  his 
contributions  to  different  newspapers.     It  is  an  inva- 
lid's life  which  is  recorded,  with  hardly  a  reference  to 
weakness  or  illness.     On  the  15th  of  June  he  went  to 
Magnolia.    He  resumed  his  work  on  the  Autobiography, 
and  advanced  it  nearly  to  the  point  where  the  reader 
has  found  it  discontinued.     In  this  summer  he  records 
excursions,  longer  or  shorter,  in  the  "  Sheila,"  the  yacht 
of  his  friend  Mr.  Foote,  who,  as  it  proved,  was  not  to 
survive  him  long,  and  whose  friendship  and  companion- 
ship were  the  source  of  great  pleasure  to  him.     For  the 
first  time,  I  think,  he  prepared  in  advance  for  the  pul- 
pit service  of  the  winter  by  writing  sermons  in  summer, 
and  before  he  returned  to  Boston  he  had  written  six. 
The   subjects   are,  "Eejoice   Evermore,"  "The   Labor 
Troubles,"  "Dorothea  Dix,"   "Jesus  as  the    SpintuiU 
Leader  of  the  Race,"  "Paganism  in  Christianity." 

On  the  2d  of  October,  to  the  joy  of  his  people,  he 
resumed  his  place  in  the  puli)it,  and  preached  the  s(>r- 
mon,  "  Rejoice  Evermore."  From  this  time,  with  but 
two  exceptions,  he  preached  every  Sunday  until  the  Ith 
of  ]\Iarch,  generally  with  the  memorandum  in  the  diary 
that  some  member  of  the  church,  or  some  other  Ineiid, 


DIARY  AND  CO-BRESPONDENCE. 

assisted  in  the  service.^  As  late  as  Kovember  of  this 
year,  he  wrote,  as  he  had  done  for  so  many  years,  the 
report  of  the  committee  on  the  Observatory  to  the 
overseers  of  Harvard  College. 

Nor  is  there  any  self-indulgence  as  the  winter  comes 
on.  "  To  Boston ;  carriage  two  hours  ;  seven  calls," 
*^ Dinner  of  Class  of  1829;"  "Letter  with  Christmas 
song  to  R.  C.  H. ; "    "  Sent  G.  H.  Ellis  two  sermons, 

*  Temperance   Efforts   and   Temperance  Methods '  and 

*  The  Pew  System ' ;  "  "  Bible-class  at  my  room  at 
church ;  "  such  are  memoranda  of  four  successive  Jan- 
uary days.  "How  to  get  the  best  out  of  the  coming 
year  "  is  the  resolute  title  of  the  sermon  of  January  8  ; 
and,  on  the  same  day,  fitly  enough  he  baptizes  a  little 
girl  by  the  name  of  "  Hope." 

On  the  22d,  after  he  had  preached  as  usual,  as  he  re- 
turned home  to  Jamaica  Plain,  the  horses  in  the  car- 
riage took  fright  "and  dashed  against  a  lamp-post, 
bruising  Anna,  and  cutting  my  cheek.  Dr.  Emma  L. 
Call  attended  to  me."  Such  is  the  simple  entry  in  his 
diary.  Dr.  Call,  who  fortunately  happened  to  be  pass- 
ing, accompanied  him  to  Jamaica  Plain  and  took  a 
stitch  in  his  eyelid.  His  diary  adds,  "  On  account  of  ac- 
cident I  have  been  obliged  to  stay  at  home  all  this  week 
and  abstain  from  reading  and  writing ;  "  and  Thursday 
he  says,  "  Amanuensis  writes  my  sermon."  The  accident 
did  not  prevent  his  preaching  the  next  Sunday,  "  Know 
Thyself"  being  his  subject.  There  follow,  in  regular 
order  of  successive  Sundays,  with  only  one  interrup- 
tion, four  sermons  on  the  Lord's  prayer ;  the  texts  be- 
ing, "  Thy  Kingdom  Come,"  "  Daily  Bread,"  "  Forgive 
us  our  Debts,"  "As  we  forgive  our  Debtors."  The 
last  of  these  was  delivered  on  the  18th  of  March,  the 
Sunday  after  the  well-remembered  "blizzard,"  which 
blocked  all  railroads  and  broke  all  telegraph  wires,  so 

^  His  parishioners,  Rev.  S.  B.  Cruft  and  Mr.  Darwin  E.  Ware,  read 
the  service  for  him  during  several  months. 


CLOSING   YEARS.  307 

that  "  our  only  access  to  New  York  from  Boston  is  by 
cable  to  London."     This  is  his  entry  of  the  14th. 

A  few  letters,  written  during  the  years  of  which  we 
have  spoken,  follow. 

TO    W.    G.    ELIOT. 

October  31,  1881. 

Dear  William, —  'T  is  All-Hallow  E'en,  and  I  have 
seen  a  ghost.  I  opened  my  portfolio,  and  there  lay  two 
letters  of  yours  unanswered,  and  the  ghost  I  saw  was 
that  of  your  face  looking  at  me,  and  saying,  "  How  long, 
James  !  how  long  ? "  But  then  I  knew  you  would 
never  say  it ;  it  was  oidy  a  ghost  and  no  reality.  .  .  . 

How  good  of  you  to  write  such  sweet,  bright,  tender, 
sparkling  letters.  You  have  forgotten  all  about  them, 
but  they  were  just  like  your  talk.  ...  I  wish  that  you 
and  Mrs.  Eliot  would  come  and  make  us  a  visit  next 
summer  at  our  little  house  by  the  sea,  on  the  shore  of 
Cape  Ann.  William  Channing  came  last  summer,  and 
it  would  make  us  all  very  happy  to  see  you.  I  sit  on 
the  piazza  and  look  at  the  ocean ;  that  is  the  chief  work 
I  do  in  the  summer. 

Did  you  know  I  have  two  grandchildren  ?  Eliot's 
children,  one  a  little  girl,  over  two  and  half  years,  and 
one  a  little  boy  called  James  Freeman,  eight  months. 
They  are  as  charming  as  they  can  be. 

With  love  always,  Jamks. 

TO    W.    (;.    KLIOT. 

November  '.)  and  L'T,  ISSI. 

.  .  .  Half  an  hour  In' fore  ycur  pleasant  letter  came  I 
had  finished  a  little  dedication  to  you  of  my  next  bo^k, 
"Events  and  Epochs  in  Keligitms  History."  I  hope 
you  will  not  be  displeased  at  my  showing  in  this  way 
the  many  years  of  affection  which  have  united  us.  .  .  . 
Thanksgiving  is  over,  and  we  have  been  made  ghid  and 
gay  by  a  visit  from  Eliot,  his  wife  and  two  children. 
It  was  delightful  to  have  the  little  things  about. 


368  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

Dear  William,  I  always  read  your  letters  with  de- 
light. They  bring  back  the  old  days  when  Ave  were  full 
of  vitality  and  hope.  Perhaps  in  the  next  world  we 
shall  be  like  little  children  again,  and  have  a  fresh  sup- 
ply of  juvenility.  Do  not  forget  your  promise  to  come 
with  your  wife  and  stay  with  us  next  summer  at  the 
seashore.  You  need  not  do  anything  but  sit  on  the 
piazza  and  look  at  the  sea, 

I  have  a  terrible  piece  of  work  before  me  in  writing  a 
new  course  of  Lowell  lectures.  It  will  make  the  sec- 
ond part  of  "  Ten  Great  Keligions,"  and  must  be  fin- 
ished by  the  end  of  January. 

TO    A.    H.    C. 

New  York,  November  20,  1881. 
...  I  wish  to  show  in  my  Lowell  lectures  the  real 
religion  of  humanity,  and  how  God  is  with  all  nations, 
teaching  them  something  of  himself.^  .  .  . 

TO    W.    G.    ELIOT. 

April  3,  1882. 
Dear  William,  —  I  am  seventy-two  years  to-morrow, 
and  congratulate  myself  that  you  and  AVilliam  Chan- 
ning  are  still  on  this  side  with  me.  Let  us  stick  to- 
gether as  long  as  we  can.  I  send  you  some  of  his  sjm- 
bolisms.  How  he  throws  himself  into  all  sympathies  ! 
I  am  expecting  to  see  him  before  long,  for  I  shall 
sail  from  Boston,  May  13,  to  be  away  two  or  three 
months.  .  .  . 

^  Among  some  manuscripts  of  that  period  was  a  loose  sheet  headed ; 

"  Before  writing  the  Lowell  Lectures. 

"  Howbeit,  when  he,  the  spirit  of  truth  shall  come,  he  will  lead  you 
into  all  tTuth. 

"  This  work  of  twelve  lectures  on  the  religions  of  the  world  may  do 
great  good  or  little,  as  it  is  done.  May  I  be  helped  to  put  out  of  my 
heart  any  wish  but  this,  that  the  truth  of  God  and  the  good  of  man 
may  be  served  by  them.  May  I  be  led  by  the  Spirit  to  say  the  best 
and  most  needed  things  —  whatever  may  confirm  love  to  God  and  to 
man.     May  I  rely  on  that  promise  of  my  master  and  friend." 


CLOSING    YEARS.  369 

London,  May  20,  1882. 

Our  voyage  was  rather  long,  cold,  loggy  and  disagree- 
ble,  and  we  were  glad  last  Thursday  morning  to  be  at 
Liverpool,  where  we  took  a  train  at  once  for  London. 
Lilian  joined  us  Friday  evening,  coming  from  Paris, 
Avliere  she  has  had  a  pleasant  time  with  j\Irs.  William 
B.  Greene  and  Ellen  Hale. 

Yesterday  (Whitsunday)  we  four  went  to  llampstead, 
where  I  preached  for  Dr.  Sadler,  a  line  old  gentleman, 
in  a  very  x^leasant,  picturesque  English  chapel. 

Hampstead  is  lovely,  half  city  and  half  country.  We 
went,  after  church,  to  dine  with  Professor  J.  Estlin 
Carpenter.  His  father,  Dr.  William  ]>.  Carpenter,  was 
present,  and  was  very  agreeable,  talking  about  Darwin, 
Carlyle,  and  many  others  whom  he  had  known, 

Jime  17,  1882. 

We  have  been  in  London  three  weeks  ;  and  it  seems 
more  like  three  months,  so  many  new  impressions  have 
succeeded  each  other,  so  many  people  have  we  seen,  so 
many  places  visited.  Did  you  ever  notice  this  curious 
mental  phenomenon,  that  a  succession  of  novelties 
makes  the  time  go  by  very  rapidly,  but  also  causes  it  to 
appear  very  long  in  looking  back  ?  Each  day  goes  by 
like  a  flash  ;  l)ut,  when  gone,  it  has  the  air  of  a  week. 
On  the  other  hand,  when  one  has  little  to  do,  the  days 
drag  heavily  along  and  the  hours  have  leaden  feet ;  but 
when  gone,  leaving  nothing  to  mark  them  in  the  mem- 
ory, they  shrink  to  a  s])an. 

This  week  was  the  close  of  the  Oxford  term,  and  we 
spent  the  greater  part  of  two  days  there.  I  think  there 
can  be  no  other  place  in  the  world  like  Oxford.  Quiet 
and  peaceful  for  the  most  part,  with  an  air  of  monastic 
seclusion;  every  college  a  cloister,  a  sejKirate  commu- 
nity, with  its  own  hall,  chapel,  library,  quadrangles, 
dormitories,  gardens,  kitchens,  dining-room, — tlie  ef- 
fect is  of  a  town  of  convents.     These  gray  old  build- 


370  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

ings  take  us  back  five  hundred  years.  Eaten  by  the 
teeth  of  time,  that  mighty  rodent,  they  speak  of  the 
numerous  generations  come  and  gone.  Pass  under  this 
low  Gothic  portal  in  the  wall :  a  bell  chimes  as  you 
enter,  a  gift  of  John  of  Gaunt  perhaps,  or  of  bluff  King 
Harry.  Cross  it  and  pass  into  another  old  gateway, 
and  open  an  old  oaken  door.  You  are  now  in  the 
chapel,  where  storied  panes,  richly  colored,  admit  the 
poet's  dim  religious  light.  Opposite  is  the  dining-hall, 
with  portraits  on  the  walls  of  the  eminent  scholars, 
statesmen,  soldiers,  ecclesiastics,  who  have  been  stu- 
dents in  these  halls.  Then  comes  the  library.  The 
books  have  that  unreadable  air  which  belongs  to  a  very 
old  collection.  The  fashion  of  this  world  passeth  away 
in  books,  as  well  as  in  all  other  things.  How  proud 
were  the  authors  of  these  mighty  tomes  of  their  work  ! 
Now,  who  reads  them  ?  An  ancient  and  a  mouldy 
smell  comes  from  them  :  let  us  go  into  the  gardens. 

Every  hall  has  its  garden  or  park,  often  running 
down  to  the  river,  gay  with  flowers,  bordered  by  stately 
elms.  .  .  . 

We  were  desirous  of  being  present  at  the  Commemo- 
ration Services,  which  correspond  to  our  College  Com- 
mencement. Tickets  to  the  theatre  were  in  demand, 
but  through  the  great  kindness  of  Dr.  Acland,  Eegius 
Professor  of  Medicine,  we  had  seats  for  our  whole  party. 
The  distinguished  guests  of  the  university  Avho  came  that 
day  to  take  their  honorary  degrees  were  Sir  William 
Hamilton  Muir  (the  Sanskrit  scholar),  Goldwin  Smith, 
Robert  Browning,  Dr.  Allen  Thompson,  and  Mr.  Watts, 
the  artist. 

At  Oxford  I  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  Dr.  Jowett, 
Dr.  Acland,  Professor  Westwood,  Mr.  Seligman,  author- 
ity on  libraries,  and  Max  Miiller,  besides  other  interest- 
ing people. 

In  London  I  have  met  with  very  many  interesting 
people,  to  some  of  whom  I  had  letters.     Dr.  Bradley, 


CLOSING   YEARS.  371 

Dean  of  Westminster,  showed  me  tliroui^li  the  ourious 
rooms  anil  passages  of  the  Deanery  and  expUiined  the 
monnments  of  the  Abbey.  I  have  also  met  with  Stoj)- 
ford  Brooke,  Mr.  Haweis,  Matthew  Arnohl,  John  Bright, 
Miss  Octavia  Hill,  Thomas  H.  Gill,  Miss  Swanwick, 
Miss  Frances  Power  Cobbe,  and  others. 

My.  Clarke  and  his  family  spent  some  days  with  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Edwin  Lawrence,  whose  hospitable  home  is  so 
gratefully  remembered  by  many  traveling  Americans. 
Here  they  saw  John  Bright,  and  others  whom  they  were 
glad  to  meet.  They  made  several  visits  to  Professor 
and  Mrs.  J.  Estlin  Carpenter.  They  also  spent  some 
hours  with  Rev.  and  Mrs.  Philip  Wicksteed.  Indeed, 
those  who  contributed  to  the  happiness  of  their  stay  in 
London  were  too  numerous  to  be  named  here,  and  the 
days  were  too  few  to  see  as  much  as  they  wished  of 
these  friends. 

Mr.  Clarke  had  long  been  a  lover  of  the  h3'mns  of 
Thomas  H.  Gill,  and  they  had  exchanged  letters  and 
books.  Now  they  met  face  to  face.  Mr.  Gill  came 
rapidly  into  the  room,  and,  seizing  Mr.  Clarke's  hand, 
said  in  Greek,  "  As  unknown  and  yet  well  known.'' 
Then  followed  a  long  and  happy  talk. 

"William  H.  Channing  was  living  in  London,  and  he 
and  ^Ir.  Clarke  met  almost  every  day. 

London,  June  IS,  18S2. 
Yesterday  I  went  in  the  morning  to  hi>ar  Canon  Far- 
rar,  who  preaches  in  St.  ]\Largaret's,  Westminster.  The 
church  was  crowded  in  every  ])art,  every  foot  of  stand- 
ing-room being  occupied.  The  sermon  was  a  noble  tril>- 
ute  to  Garibaldi,  and  was  as  free  and  strong  as  if  it  liad 
come  from  the  lips  of  Theodore  Parker.  The  services 
which  preceded  the  sermon  last('(l  id)()ut  an  liour.  and 
were  full  of  repetitions.  .  .  .  But,  wh«'n  Canon  Fanar 
ascended   the   pulpit  and   began  to  preach,  the  change 


872  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

from  formalism  to  freedom  was  instantaneous.  He 
seemed  to  clear  the  air  of  these  mediaeval  mists  by  the 
first  words  he  spoke. 

On  the  Sunday  evening  previous  we  had  heard  a  very 
different  preacher,  Mr.  Spurgeon.  Intellectually  his  ser- 
mon had  nothing  in  it.  Yet  there  was  a  crowded  house, 
said  to  contain  six  thousand  persons.  The  force  which 
brings  them  together,  and  holds  them  there,  is  the 
manifest  belief  of  Spurgeon  that  these  people  need  and 
can  have  an  immediate  salvation,  and  his  direct,  strong, 
simple  purpose  of  doing  all  in  his  power  to  bring  them 
into  the  love  of  God. 

What  a  contrast  Avas  this  evening  to  another  evening 
a  week  later,  with  James  Martineau  !  We  passed  some 
quiet  hours  with  this  pure,  clear,  and  profound  thinker, 
who  is  still  working  on  at  the  age  of  seventy-five  in 
calm  serenity.  He  is  as  deeply  interested  as  ever  in 
the  religious  thought  of  the  time,  and  in  the  education 
of  young  men  for  the  ministry. 

Paris,  July  2. 

In  London  I  found  what  I  had  wished  much  to  see, 
an  early  autograph  copy  of  Gray's  "Elegy."  Several 
autographs  of  this  poem  exist.  One  is  in  the  British 
Museum.  By  the  kindness  of  Sir  William  Fraser,  its 
owner,  I  examined  at  my  leisure  what  seems  to  have 
been  the  earliest  sketch  of  the  poem.  He  has  also 
many  other  curiosities  in  his  collection,  —  the  original 
manuscript  of  Scott's  "Marmion;"  the  copy  of  the 
first  edition  of  the  "Vicar  of  Wakefield,"  given  by 
Goldsmith  to  Dr.  Johnson  ;  Dr.  Johnson's  own  copy  of 
his  own  story  "  Easselas  ; "  and  a  whole  library  of  curi- 
ous works  of  this  sort. 

In  the  house  of  another  English  gentleman  I  saw  a 
package  of  autograjih  letters  by  Oliver  Cromwell.  They 
came  from  the  house  of  Kichard  Cromwell ;  and  as  I 
spelled  them  out,  one  by  one,  they  interested  me  much. 


CLOSING   YEARS.  373 

One,  written  to  liis  son  Ividiard,  wlie^n  a  youth,  gave 
him  advice  as  to  his  reading,  and,  among  othtT  books, 
recommended  him  to  read  "Walter  Kaleigh's  "History 
of  the  World."  I  saw  also  in  the  same  collection  a  let- 
ter Avritten  by  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  on  the  night  be- 
fore her  execution.  It  was,  I  believe,  to  the  mother  of 
her  first  husband.  It  was  a  long  letter,  carefully  writ- 
ten, and  showed  how  self-possessed  she  must  have  been 
in  view  of  her  approaching  death. 

Mr.  Clarke  went  twice  to  the  House  of  Commons.  (Jn 
one  occasion  the  Egyptian  and  the  Irish  troubles  were 
both  under  discussion,  and  he  heard  questions  put  ])y 
the  different  members  to  Gladstone,  and  his  replies.  A 
fiery  member  rose,  and  made  a  si)eech  in  favor  of  boy- 
cotting, and  this  proved  to  be  Parnell. 

The  party  reluctantly  turned  their  faces  toward  the 
Continent,  saying,  in  the  words  of  Francis  Higginson, 
"■  Farewell,  dear  England  !  Farewell  the  church  of  God 
in  England,  and  all  the  Christian  friends  there  ! " 

They  spent  ten  or  twelve  days  in  Paris,  and  ]\rr. 
Clarke,  as  was  his  habit,  went  into  many  of  the 
churches. 

"How  imposing  are  these  Catholic  churches  !  AMiat 
beauty  and  majest}^  in  their  vast  i)roi)ortions  and  lovely 
details !  As  we  enter  these  solemn  aisles  a  sense  of 
religion  enters  the  soul.  We  dro])  our  cares,  our  de- 
sires, and  for  a  few  moments  feel  the  presence  of  eter- 
nity. .  .  .  The  Catholic  Church  rejjresents  the  element 
of  worship  latent  in  every  soul,  and  rei)resents  and 
serves  it  so  well  that  it  retains  its  hold  on  millions.  It 
omits  too  much  the  other  elements  of  Christianity.  It 
does  not  help  the  ])rogress  of  man ;  but,  when  the 
deeper  and  larger  religion  comes,  it  must  retain  all 
there  is  of  good  in  this  church,  and  add  all  that  is  now 
wanting.     May  that  day  dawn  soon  I '' 

From   Paris   they   went   to    Switzerland,  when"    Mr. 


374  DIARY  AND  COEEESPONDENCE. 

Clarke  enjoyed  showing  his  daughters  the  beautiful 
scenery  which  had  so  impressed  him  on  his  first  visit 
in  1849. 

Inteklaken,  July  9,  1882. 

...  In  Bale  one  sees  the  portraits  by  Holbein,  and  is 
struck,  as  in  the  early  Italian  masters,  with  the  fullness 
of  expression  in  each  face.  These  masters  understood 
little  of  the  technicalities  of  art,  but  they  knew  what 
they  wished  to  do.  They  did  not  draw  a  face  in  order 
to  show  their  skill,  but  to  tix  on  their  canvas  the  char- 
acter of  the  man.  And  there  he  is,  with  his  courage, 
his  determined  purpose,  his  patient,  immovable  stress 
of  will,  hardened  by  long  struggles,  tested  by  sharp  en- 
counters, hardened  in  the  fires  of  misfortune  and  pain. 
Or  there  is  the  pure,  saintly  face  of  some  aspiring  and 
devoted  woman,  a  divinely  tempered  soul,  whose  con- 
versation was  in  heaven.  You  look  at  these  faces  and 
you  know  them  as  if  you  had  lived  with  them  ;  and  you 
say,  "  This  is  what  the  artist  is  for  ;  not  to  display  his 
skill  on  trivial  subjects,  not  to  paint  shallow  men  and 
frivolous  women  in  aristocratic  salons,  but  to  seize  and 
keep  the  higher  moments  of  life,  its  richest  experience, 
its  memorable  hours." 

The  picture  in  this  museum  which  interested  me 
most,  and  to  see  which  was  worth  a  visit  to  Bale,  was  a 
portrait  of  Luther  in  miniature,  by  his  friend,  Lucas 
Cranach.  It  represents  him  as  a  young  man,  not  with 
the  burly  form  and  heavy  features  to  which  we  are  ac- 
customed, but  with  clearly-cut,  well-defined  contours  of 
face,  an  earnest  and  somewhat  melancholy  expression, 
and  eyes  as  of  one  who  looked  at  a  grave  task  laid  on 
his  conscience  and  heart. 

The  Lake  of  Lucerne  I  saw  for  the  third  time,  and 
neither  memory  nor  imagination  can  paint  it  more  won- 
derful than  it  is.  It  combines  all  charms,  the  sublime 
majesty  of  its  black  cliffs  and  granite  pyramids,  the 
tender  loveliness  of  its  shaded  shores,  the  dazzling 
splendor  of  the  snow-fields  above. 


CLOSING   YEARS.  375 

From  Switzerland  they  went  to  Ilulland,  where  they 
spent  ten  or  twelve  days.  This  conntry  had  a  special 
interest  for  them  because  Mrs.  Clarke's  father  came 
from  there.  But,  beside  the  pleasure  of  meeting  their 
relatives,  they  liked  its  scenery  ;  and  with  Fromentin's 
"Maitres  d' Autrefois "  for  a  guide-book,  enjoyed  its 
treasures  of  art. 

As  faithful  descendants  of  the  Pilgrims  they  visited 
Leyden,  and  at  Scheveningen  tried  to  find  the  exact 
spot  from  which  the  Pilgrims  had  set  sail ;  but  to  their 
disappointment  they  found  that  the  sea  had  devoured 
it. 

Mr.  Clarke  spent  a  few  days  in  London  on  his  return 
from  the  Continent,  and  took  this  opportunity  to  go  to 
Kazing,  a  village  from  which  came  some  of  his  ances- 
tors, and  also  the  Apostle  Eliot,  related  to  the  family 
through  the  marriage  of  his  sister  to  William  Curtis,  an 
ancestor  of  ^Ir.  Clarke.  Though  only  a  few  hours  from 
London,  everything,  roads  and  fields  and  houses,  ap- 
peared as  they  might  have  done  when  Eliot  and  his 
friends  took  their  last  look  at  the  i)lace  before  setting 
out  for  America.  Mr.  Clarke  went  at  once  to  the  tup  of 
the  tower  in  the  old  church. 

"  In  ascending  I  had  to  push  my  way  through  the  re- 
mains of  the  nests  made  by  many  generations  of  rooks. 
...  As  I  looked  down  from  the  tower  I  saw  Epping 
forest  in  the  distance,  and  nearer,  the  common,  where 
tradition  tells  us  that  Boadicea  defeated  the  Roman 
army.  In  the  little  church  are  still  shown  the  oaken 
seats  on  which  John  Eliot  and  AVilliam  Curtis  sat  as 
boys.  ... 

"  Perhaps  some  of  you  may  have  visited  Nazing. 
Those  who  have  not  will  like  to  liear  of  the  village, 
where  originated  the  Curtises  and  Heaths,  of  Koxbury, 
and  so  many  more  with  whose  names  we  are  familiar, 
and  especially  which  gave  birth  to  John  Eliot,  tliat 
sweet  and  holy  soul,  who  gave  letters  and  grammar  to  a 


376  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

before  unwritten  language  ;  who  translated  the  Bible 
into  this  strange  toDgue ;  who  had  it  printed ;  who 
taught  the  Indians  to  read  it ;  who  went  among  the 
rude  savages  without  fear,  and  who  made  them  his 
friends.  The  pure  light  of  his  loving  faith  shines 
among  the  more  lurid  lights  of  New  England  Puritan- 
ism, — 

'  Velut  inter  ignes 
Luna  minores.' 

"  I  also  went  to  Waltham  Abbey,  six  miles  from  Na- 
zing.  This  is  a  church  so  ancient  that  a  part  of  it  dates 
back  to  a  period  before  the  Conquest.  Somewhere  in 
the  churchyard  repose  the  remains  of  Harold,  the  last 
Saxon  king. 

"  Waltham  Abbey  is  fourteen  miles  from  London,  and 
is  on  the  river  Lea,  a  stream  made  famous  as  the  place 
where  Izaak  Walton  loved  to  fish." 

On  the  12th  of  September,  Mr.  Clarke  was  back  in 
Boston,  and  on  the  following  Sunday  he  preached  in  his 
own  pulpit. 

TO    HIS    SISTER. 

November  8,  1882. 
.  .  .  We  are  all  well,  and  have  gone  to  work  again  as 
usual.  The  moment  I  was  at  home  I  was  called  upon 
to  attend  to  various  duties  immediately.  I  felt  as  the 
horses  in  the  engine  house  may  be  supposed  to  feel 
when  the  fire-bell  strikes,  and  their  harness  drops  upon 
them.     I  found  myself  as  suddenly  in  the  traces. 

TO    HIS    SISTER. 

Jamaica  Plain,  March  12,  1883. 
I  was  much  pleased  to  see  your  catalogue  of  books. 

As  soon  as  I  get  the  vacant  half  hour  (which  Mr.  F 

said  he  should  have  after  his  death,  and  designated  as  a 
time  when  an  importunate  person  might  call,  and  he 
would  attend  to  him),  I  shall  try  to  look  up  some  books 
to   fill   your   evident  lacunce.      Last  night  I  preached 


CLOSING   YEARS.  377 

to  a  full  Music  Hall  for  an  hour,  and  was  not  tired.  .  .  . 
Anna  and  I  are  reading  the  correspondence  of  Emerson 
and  Carlyle.  It  is  interesting.  But  we  are  rather 
startled  at  the  stately,  elaborate  style  on  both  sides. 
Every  letter  seems  a  tour  de  force.  There  is  nothing  of 
the  currente  calaino  about  either.  Even  the  inij)etuous 
T.  C,  who  in  his  books  rushes  on  at  hap-hazard,  and 
often  in  his  haste  seems  to  go  head  over  heels,  appears 
daunted  by  K.  W.  E.,  and  tries  to  write  back  in  the 
same  vein.  .  .  . 

TO    REV.    JOHN    CORDXER. 

Boston,  March  15,  1883. 

I  am,  with  many  others,  much  interested  in  the  at- 
tempt to  procure  a  central,  commodious,  and  suitable 
building  for  the  use  of  the  Unitarian  body.  This 
should  have  been  done  long  ago,  and  we  have  suffered 
much  from  not  having  had  it.  ...  A  home  for  the  de- 
nomination is  what  is  needed  in  order  to  be  the  centre 
of  our  chief  activities. 

I  am  not  a  sectarian,  I  believe,  in  my  regard  for  the 
Unitarian  body.  I  feel  great  sympathy  Avith  the  other 
denominations,  and  see  how  grand  is  the  work  they  are 
doing.  But  we  also  have  our  one  talent,  and  ought  not 
to  bury  it  in  the  earth,  or  to  hide  our  Lord's  money.  It 
is  not  ours,  it  is  his.  Wherever  Unitarianism  has  gone 
it  has  aided  education,  philanthropy,  and  all  humane 
reforms.  Let  us  do  everything  we  can  for  that  which 
has  done  so  much  for  us. 

FROM    W.    II.    CIIANXING. 

June  14,  l."=iS.3. 

...  You  shall  certainly  have  all  your  letters  now  in 
my  possession.  But  the  great  Boston  tire  cost  you  and 
me  more  than  you  dreamed  of ;  for  a  portmanteau,  fiUed 
with  the  assorted  correspondence  f)f  friends,  and  of  my 
own  note-books,  etc.,  went  up  in   tinder  that  tremen- 


378  DIABY  AND  CORBESPONDENCE. 

doiis  night,  though  the  flames  stopped  at  the  very  next 
wall,  in  Exchange  Building,  State  Street,  after  licking  up 
our  "  sweet  morsels  "  with  the  final  sweep  of  its  ruddy 
tongue.^  Of  late  years  you  have  found  time  to  write 
very  little  to  me,  though  some  of  your  brief  notes  indi- 
cate the  quality  of  our  friendship. 

And  in  using  this  sacred  name,  the  wish  grows  strong 
that  in  your  story  you  will  interweave  enough  of  bright 
memories  of  this  old  classmate  and  compeer  of  yours 
to  let  the  growing  boys  and  youth  of  our  dear  New 
England  see  how  very  sweet,  beautiful,  and  heavenly  a 
life-long  unbroken  friendship  is.  Tell  them  somewhat 
of  our  old  Cambridge  days ;  of  the  Cincinnati  and 
Louisville  era,  when  we  were  co-editors  of  the  "  West- 
ern Messenger ; "  of  the  anti-slavery  and  Brook  Earm 
times,  so  rich  with  mighty  issues.  But  follow  your 
own  impulse,  and  that  will  be  best. 

TO    WILLIAM    G.    ELIOT. 

December  14,  1883. 
I  feel  as  you  do  about  the  work  we  might  have  done, 
and  have  not.  I  sometimes  think  I  made  a  great  mis- 
take in  being  settled  over  a  church,  instead  of  devoting 
my  life  to  preaching  in  the  byways  and  out  of  the  way 
places  to  the  unchurched  people,  outside  of  any  healthy 
organization.  By  giving  them  the  sincere  milk  of  the 
gospel,  all  summed  up  in  the  words,  "  Come  unto  me 
and  I  will  give  you  rest,"  apart  from  all  theologies  or 
anti-theologies,  Jesus  the  dear  Christ,  the  well-beloved 
son,  the  brother  and  friend  and  helper  of  us  all,  I  think 
that  a  new  revival  ought  to  come.  But  I  take  the  same 
comfort  that  you  do.  The  Lord  has  his  own  servants, 
and  will  send  by  whom  he  will  send.  He  has  let  us  do 
something,  and  we  ought  to  be  grateful. 

1  The  greater  portion  of  Mr.  Clarke's  letters  to  his  friend,  William 
G.  Eliot,  were  also  destroyed,  by  the  burning  of  Mr.  Eliot's  house  in 
St.  Louis. 


CLOSING  YEARS.  879 

In  the  spring  of  1884,  a  great  sorrow  came  to  Mr. 
Clarke  in  the  death  of  the  dear  grandson  of  whom  he 
has  spoken  in  his  letters.  He  missed  the  sunshine 
which  the  child  had  brought  into  his  life,  but  deeper 
than  the  sense  of  loss  was  his  conviction  that  "  what 
God  gives  he  gives  forever." 

FROM    W.    H.    CHANNIXG. 

Ascension  Day,  May  22,  1884. 
My  dear  James,  —  Let  this  blessed  day  of  hope  for 
heavenly  reunion  with  our  ascended  friends  be  marked 
in  my  calendar  as  a  festival,  by  wishing  you  joy  for 
the  success  with  which  you  have  been  favored  in  your 
book  on  ''The  Ideas  of  Paul."  Only  my  continued 
weakness,  from  two  months  and  more  coniinement  to 
my  bed  and  room,  making  all  effort  to  write  a  painful 
burden,  has  delayed  an  earlier  expression  of  my  thanks. 
But  you  will  be  glad  to  know  that  this  beautiful  volume 
has  been  one  of  my  "  morning  companions  "  ever  since 
it  reached  me,  and  has  inspired  as  well  as  comforted 
me,  in  your  own  sense  of  the  word  comfort.  .  .  . 

TO    HIS    SISTER. 

Magnolia,  July  5,  ISSU. 

We  are  all  anxious  about  our  little  Anna,  Eliot's 
youngest  child,  who  is  extremely  ill  with  the  whooping- 
cough.  She  has  the  best  care,  and  Dr.  Charles  Put- 
nam is  staying  Avith  us  all  the  time  he  can,  day  and 
night.  .  .  . 

I  have  attacked  my  Autobiography,  and  find  I  need 
your  help,  and  that  of  Sam,  about  Xewton  in  our  child- 
hood. Will  you  write  out  all  you  recollect,  especially 
about  grandfather  and  grandmother  Hull,  and  the  curi- 
ous characters  then  in  Newton.  I  want  that  preserved, 
and  you  two  can  do  it. 


380  DIABY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

July  16, 1884. 
The  doctor  told  us  yesterday  he  thought  our  baby  had 
turned  the  corner,  and  was  on  the  mend.  Her  cough  is 
less  frequent  and  not  so  severe  as  it  has  been ;  so  we 
feel  very  much  relieved.  .  .  .  We  have  no  news,  for  the 
baby  and  its  condition  have  absorbed  us.^ 

TO    REV.    J.    H.    ALLEX. 

Jamaica  Plain,  February  17,  1885. 

I  received  your  very  kind  letter,  and  it  gave  me  great 
pleasure.  Your  description  of  the  interest  you  took  in 
the  group  of  which  Theodore  Parker,  William  Henry 
Channiug,  James  H.  Perkins,  George  Eipley,  etc.,  were 
members,  and  with  which  I  also  had  the  pleasure  of 
being  associated,  was  peculiarly  pleasing,  and  touched 
me  nearly.  How  strange  are  the  influences  which  act 
on  us !  There  was  our  poor  little  "  Western  ^lessen- 
ger,"  which  found  you  out  at  Xorthboro,  and  found  our 
dear  brother  Conant  in  Chicago,  and  in  which  we  put 
the  best  life  we  had.  How  well  James  H.  Perkins 
wrote  !  When  it  was  printed  in  Louisville,  I  had  to  be 
publisher,  editor,  contributor,  proof-reader,  and  boy  to 
pack  up  the  copies  and  carry  them  to  the  post  ofiice. 
But  I  enjoyed  it. 

And  you  read  "  Theodore  "  too,  and  went  to  Amory 
Hall !  I  have  scarcely  ever  heard  of  any  one's  reading 
"  Theodore,"  but  if  you  liked  it,  perhaps  others  also 
liked  it.  Every  man  who  writes  a  book  or  preaches  a 
sermon  casts  his  bread  on  the  waters,  —  happy  if,  as 
now,  he  finds  it  again  after  many  days. 

It  was  very  kind  of  you,  my  dear  Allen,  to  write  to 
me  as  you  have  done,  and  your  friendly  appreciation  of 

^  Wlien  not  too  ill,  the  infant  was  carried  about,  lying-  on  a  pillow, 
in  the  arms  of  different  members  of  the  family,  and  her  grandfather 
would  walk  up  and  down  the  hall,  holding  her,  and  reciting  in  Latin 
the  Odes  of  Horace.  The  tones  of  his  voice  had  the  effect  of  sooth- 
ing her. 


CLOSING   YEARS.  381 

some  of  my  past  efforts  warms  my  heart.  We  do  not 
care  for  praise  as  we  grow  okl^  but  we  always  are  made 
happy  by  sympathy. 

' '  Common  as  light  is  love, 
And  its  familiar  voice  wearies  not  ever." 

On  Mr.  Clarke's  seventy-fifth  birthday  his  parishion- 
ers invited  him  to  spend  a  social  evening  with  them, 
and  the  occasion,  as  usual,  was  like  a  family  festival, 
though  it  included  also  a  few  friends  not  belonging  to 
the  church  family.  It  was  held  on  the  Gth  of  April, 
and  the  next  day  he  wrote  to  his  sister  :  — 

We  had  a  large  and  pleasant  reception  last  night,  and 
your  very  affectionate  telegram  added  much  to  our  sat- 
isfaction. There  were  four  hundred  persons  present. 
Innumerable  roses,  lilies,  violets,  etc.,  perfumed  the 
air,  and  all  went  merry  as  a  marriage  bell.  The  ages 
ranged  from  that  of  Mr.  Henry  B.  Kogers,  eighty-three, 
and  Mr.  William  Amory,  and  Mr.  John  C.  Park,  over 
eighty,  down  to  two  little  daughters  of  Laura  Howe 
Eichards.  .  .  . 

TO    REV.    J.    W\    DAY. 

Magnolia,  Mass.,  September  7,  1885. 
Thank  you  for  your  kind  note,  and  for  what  you  say 
of  the  good  you  received  from  my  services.  No  greater 
satisfaction  can  come  to  us  than  from  such  an  expres- 
sion as  that.  No  matter  how  old  we  are,  it  always  glad- 
dens us  to  think  that  we  have  been  helped  to  help  others, 
on  this,  the  highest  plane  of  being.  That  you  may 
receive  many  such  assurances  is  my  best  wish  for  you. 

TO    W.    G.    ELIOT. 

Ffbruary  13,  188C. 

Dear  William,  —  I  read  with  delight  and  emotion 
your  charming  little  story  about  the  fugitive  ''  Archer." 


S82  DIARY  AND  COEBESPONDENCE. 

It  is  one  of  the  "  inemoires  pour  servir  "  for  the  history 
of  an  epoch  already  so  far  passed  by  as  akaost  to  belong 
to  a  Paleontologic  age.  .  .  . 

With  constant  love. 

TO   S.    C.    C. 

Magnolia,  August  25, 1886. 
...  I  have  had  a  very  slow  recovery  from  my  indis- 
position. I  have  been  confined  to  this  house  for  more 
than  four  weeks,  —  half  of  my  vacation.  But,  as  I  like 
to  look  on  the  bright  side  of  things,  I  looked  for  it  in 
this  event,  and  then  I  remembered  that  many  of  the 
gayest  people  went  into  "  a  religious  retreat "  once  a 
year,  the  world  quite  shut  out  for  a  month.  So  I  said 
I  will  consider  this  as  my  religious  retreat,  and  be  con- 
tent. .  .  . 

TO    HIS    SISTER. 

Jamaica  Plain,  January  24,  1887. 
I  have  just  seen  in  the  paper  the  death  of  William  Gr. 
Eliot.  How  our  dear  friends  leave  us  !  We  seem  to  be 
at  the  foot  of  the  procession.  What  a  true  and  admira- 
ble life  William  led  !  How  fixed  to  his  principles  !  It 
might  have  been  said  to  him  as  to  Simon,  "  Thou  art  a 
rock."  And  yet  what  a  sweet  and  playful  nature 
withal !  His  serious  work  would  have  made  him  stern, 
did  not  this  cloud  have  a  silver  lining.  .  .  .  Our  rela- 
tions were  more  of  the  affections  than  of  the  intellect. 
I  leaned  on  his  life,  on  his  true  heart,  on  his  unflinch- 
ing will,  on  his  untiring  devotion  to  everything  right 
and  good.  .  .  . 

TO    HIS    SISTER. 

Jamaica  Plain,  May  9,  1887. 
.  .  .  You  perceive  by  this  that  I  am  a  step  on  my 
way  towards  convalescence.     But  I  do  not  write  much 
as  yet.     In  fact,  I  think  this  is  my  second  letter  in  my 


CLOSING   YEARS.  383 

own  autograph.  I  now  see  one  or  more  friends  each  af- 
ternoon, drive  out  every  morning,  and  walk  a  little  when 
the  weather  allows.  The  weather  is  warm,  and  has 
tempted  out  the  great  flowers  of  my  soulange  magnolia. 
There  are  hundreds  of  flowers  upon  it.  The  orioles  have 
come  from  the  South,  and  All  the  air  with  their  music. 
We  hope  to  go  to  Magnolia  early  in  June.  .  .  . 

TO    HIS    SISTER. 

June  8,  1887. 
...  A  week  ago  (Whitsunday)  I  went  to  church,  and 
baptized  some  children,  saying  a  few  words,  and  I  was 
none  the  worse  for  it.  Yesterday  I  went  to  Boston  to 
attend  to  a  little  business.  To-day  Cora  and  some  of 
the  family  go  to  Magnolia  to  open  the  house,  and  Anna 
and  I  expect  to  go  down  next  AVednesday.  I  dare  say 
the  change  of  air  will  help  me.  We  shall  have  a  full 
house,  —  fourteen  in  all,  including  the  three  chil- 
dren. .  .  . 

TO    HIS    SISTER. 

Magnoua,  August  21,  1887. 

.  .  .  Your  letter  from  Milwaukee  gave  me  a  new  idea 
of  the  immense  and  rapid  progress  of  those  Western 
cities.  The  only  case  like  these  is  that  of  Melbourne, 
founded  in  1835,  and  now  containing  nearly  300,000  in- 
habitants, splendid  streets,  noble  buildings,  and  a  richly 
endowed  university.  The  reason  I  know  about  this  is 
that  this  summer,  as  usual,  Anna  and  I  travel  round 
the  world  in  books.  We  drop  down  in  South  Africa, 
we  climb  the  Alps  of  New  Zealand,  are  half  killed  by 
drought  in  Australia,  and  then  cool  ourselves  by  a  little 
Arctic  adventure.  How  kind  it  is  in  all  these  good 
people  to  travel  for  us  ! 

We  have  lately  mourned  the  death  of  Dorothea  Dix, 
a  wonderful  woman,  whose  tranquil  confidence,  force  of 
character,  tact,  and  devotion  to  her  work  accomplislicd 
such  wonders.     She  wished  W.  G.  Eliot  or  me  to  write 


384  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

her  memoir,  but  I  am  unable.  If  I  ever  write  my  own 
biography,  it  is  all  I  expect  to  do. 

I  am  getting  better,  but  not  as  fast  as  I  could  wish. 
I  drive  and  sail  almost  every  day. 

Our  home  here  is  full,  and  happy  with  the  glad  voices 
of  children,  —  happy  also  that  they  are  all  well  this 
summer. 

TO    HIS    SISTER. 

Magnolia,  September  1,  1887. 

Autumn  has  arrived,  and  we  have  had  cold  winds  and 
chill  rains  during  a  large  part  of  August. 

Do  you  wish  to  know  the  method  of  my  days  ?  We 
all  breakfast  together,  including  Eliot,  Alice,  Sue,  and 
little  Anna.  Then  I  usually  drive  Eliot  to  the  station ; 
he  goes  to  Boston  every  day.  After  I  have  been  to  the 
station  I  drive  over  to  the  post  office,  and  often  go  out  to 
sail  with  Mr.  Foote,  who  has  been  most  kind  in  urging 
me  to  go.  I  have  sailed  with  him  already  twenty-two 
times  this  summer.  AVhen  my  family  see  the  boat  re- 
turning they  come  for  me  in  the  carriage.  In  the  after- 
noon I  sometimes  call  on  our  pleasant  neighbor,  Mr. 
Jefferson  Coolidge,  or  visit  Mrs.  Towne,  Mrs.  Hemen- 
way,  or  Mrs.  James  T.  Fields  at  Manchester. 

I  have  prepared  some  sermons  for  winter,  and  hope 
to  begin  to  preach  about  the  first  of  October.  .  .  . 

Mrs.  Putnam  has  taken  great  interest  in  hunting 
through  the  old  print-shops  in  London  to  find  portraits 
for  me  of  the  persons  whose  autographs  I  possess.  She 
has  sent  me  a  large  number,  such  as  I  could  not  find 
here.  The  autographs  become  much  more  interesting 
when  accompanied  with  portraits  of  the  writers. 

Of  a  morning  with  him  on  the  "  Sheila,"  during  this 
summer,  Professor  H.  H.  Barber  gives  us  this  picture. 

The  last  time  I  met  Mr.  Clarke  will  be  always  mem- 
orable to  me.     He  was  at  his  summer  home  in  Mag- 


CLOSING    YEARS.  385 

nolia,  and  several  of  us  were  visiting  another  dear  friend 
there,  Henry  W.  Foote,  and  on  this  beautiful  summer 
morning  Mr.  Foote  signaled  to  his  neighbor,  whose 
house  was  at  the  other  end  of  the  beach,  and  Dr.  Clarke 
drove  round  for  a  sail. 

At  first  he  seemed  very  feeble  and  said  little,  but  sat 
by  himself  in  the  shadow  of  the  sail,  looking  out  over 
the  sea.  Before  long  he  came  to  where  we  were  sitting, 
and  began  to  talk.  He  related  many  reminiscences  of 
his  life  in  Meadville  and  Louisville,  and  of  the  remark- 
able persons  and  scenes  of  his  experience  in  the  latter 
place.  As  he  talked  his  voice  grew  stronger  and  his 
eye  brighter,  and  for  the  forenoon  he  was  our  friend  in 
his  most  genial  and  instructive  mood.  When  he  left 
the  yacht  he  said,  "  I  liave  had  a  very  pleasant  morning, 
but  it  seems  to  me  that  I  have  done  most  of  the  talk- 
ing." It  was  our  happiness  that  he  had  done  most  of 
the  talking. 

As  I  sailed  along  the  shore  last  summer,  and  saw 
both  of  the  homes  where  these  dear  friends  had  lived, 
I  remembered  Mr.  Clarke's  verses  which  a  friend  has 
repeated  to  me,  and  which  hold  in  part,  at  least,  the 
lesson  of  both  these  good  lives.  ^ 

TO    HIS    SISTER. 

September  IG,  1887. 
.  .  .  And  now  our  season  is  at  an  end,  and  we  are 
going  to  Boston  next  week  to  see  some  very  kind  Lon- 
don friends  whom  we  expect  to  meet  there.^  It  is  get- 
ting cold  here.  I  have  been  steadily  gaining  health 
and  strength,  but  continued  bad  weather  has  given  me 
the  hoarseness  and  cough  which  I  am  too  apt  to  sulYer 
from  in  the  winter  and  spring.  ...  I  am  charmed  with 
the  tone  of  youth,  hope,  and  active   interest  in  good 

^  The  reference  is  to  the  poem  called  White-capt  Wavts,  which 
will  be  found  in  anotlier  chapter. 

■^  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Edwin  Lawrence  and  Rev.  R.  Speara. 


386  VIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

things  and  people  whicli  pervades  your  letter.  You  re- 
mind me  more  and  more  of  our  dear  mother  in  this.  .  .  . 
How  glad  we  shall  be  to  see  her  again  !  and  our  father 
and  William  and  Abraham  and  dear  Herman,  and 
Emerson,  John  A.  Andrew,  and  fifty  more.  How  sad 
it  would  be  to  suppose  that  death  were  a  wall  instead 
of  a  door !  But  to  believe  in  a  great  future  world,  we 
must  first,  I  think,  believe  in  God ;  for  if  we  have  beerx 
made  by  an  infinite  wisdom,  we  have  been  made  for 
something  more  than  just  to  begin  a  career  and  then  to 
be  cut  off.  That  would  be  too  inconsequential.  Here 
are  you,  as  much  interested  in  life  and  art  as  ever.  I, 
at  seventy-seven,  full  of  X3lans  of  work  that  would  take 
a  dozen  years  to  complete.  We  are,  my  dear  sister, 
just  at  the  beginning,  not  at  the  end. 

TO    HIS    SISTER. 

Jamaica  Plain,  November  7,  1887. 

...  I  was  glad  to  have  your  pleasant  letter  of  Octo- 
ber 30th,  in  which  you  speak  of  Cabot's  Life  of  Emer- 
son. It  is  a  capital  book ;  but  it  seems  as  if  one  could 
never  hear  enough  about  Emerson.  .  .  .  How  little  of 
continuity  in  his  thoughts  !  and  this  it  seems  he  knew 
and  regretted.  But  I  think  he  might  have  consoled 
himself  by  what  Lord  Bacon  says,  that  "knowledge, 
while  it  is  in  aphorisms  and  observations,  is  in  growth  ; 
but  when  comprehended  in  exact  methods,  it  may  be 
further  polished  and  illustrated,  but  it  increaseth  no 
more  in  bulk  and  substance."  .  .  .  Yes  !  I  am  working 
away,  though  not  violently.  Last  week  I  took  a  vaca- 
tion, and  wrote  no  sermon. 

We  are  all  well  as  usual.  The  three  grandchildren 
are  very  sweet.  Anna  has  been  opening  our  place  to 
the  light  by  felling  a  number  of  large  trees.  One  elm, 
which  I  planted  myself,  was  seventy-four  feet  high. 
Before  felling  it  I  took  its  altitude  by  a  method  grand- 
father  Freeman   showed   me   when   I   was   a  boy,  by 


CLOSING   YEARS.  387 

lilacing  a  mirror  horizontally  on  the  ground,  at  such  a 
distance  from  the  tree  that  I  could  see  its  top  in  the 
mirror  standing  as  far  from  it  as  the  height  of  my  eye 
from  the  ground.  I  then  had  two  similar  right-angled 
triangles,  in  each  of  which  the  length  of  the  base  was 
equal  to  the  height,  and  so  had  only  to  measure  the  dis- 
tance from  the  mirror  to  the  foot  of  the  tree  to  have  its 
height.  After  that  I  enjoyed  the  idea  of  trigonometry. 
How  wise  he  was  ! 

TO    F.   H.    HEDGE. 

Jamaica  Plain,  January  12,  1888. 

I  read  through,  immediately  on  its  arrival,  the  pam- 
phlet you  were  so  kind  as  to  send  me.  I  was  much  in- 
terested in  it,  as  I  am  in  everything  you  have  ever 
printed.  Your  thoughts  are  a  great  stimulus  to  my 
intellect ;  they  set  my  thoughts  in  motion.  Most  of 
what  you  say  seems  to  me  eminently  true  and  wise. 
Some  things  I  hesitate  about.  I  do  not  like  trying  to 
leave  the  received  view  of  personality  for  the  etymolo- 
gical one. 

We  cannot  go  back  to  the  primal  meaning  of  words, 
when  a  different  one  has  been  accepted.  For  instance, 
I  could  hardly  justify  myself  in  calling  a  man  from 
whom  I  differ  intellectually  a  ^^  miscreant  ^^  by  saying 
that  I  only  meant  a  "  misbeliever." 

Personality  has  come  in  all  philosophical  speech  to 
mean  the  living  unit  which  combines  thought,  feeling, 
and  will,  in  a  perfect  monad. 

I  like  your  criticism  on  Matthew  Arnold  and  his 
definition  of  Deity. 

TO    niS    SISTER. 

Jamaica  Plain,  March  0,  1SS8. 
Sitting  before  your  picture  of  "■  Tlie  Jungfrau "  one 
afternoon  lately,  the  sun  stole  over  it,  and  brought  out 
a  multitude  of   lovely  details,  introducing  new  values 


388  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

and  lighting  up  the  great  silver  peaks  till  they  seemed 
to  swim  in  a  rosy  radiance.  The  light  quivered  over 
the  vast  mountains ;  and  when  a  cloud  went  over  the 
sun,  the  mists  collected  round  the  summits  and  hid 
them  for  a  moment,  and  then  drifted  away,  and  the 
snowy  fields  emerged  again,  and  once  more  were  bathed 
in  the  tender  light.  It  w^as  really  like  being  on  the 
spot.  I  enjoyed  it  so  much  that  I  wished  you  to  know 
of  it.  .  .  .  It  has  been  a  severe  winter.  Except  on  Sun- 
days, I  have  not  been  to  Boston  for  a  month. 


CHAPTEE  XX. 

THE    MAN. 

At  Mr.  Clarke's  ordination,  on  the  21st  of  July,  1833, 
Kev.  F.  W.  P.  Greenwood  preached  the  sermon  from 
the  text,  "  Now  the  God  of  hope  fill  you  with  all  joy 
and  peace  in  believing,  that  ye  may  abound  in  hope, 
through  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost." 

A  manuscript  copy  of  this  sermon  has  been  preserved 
among  Mr.  Clarke's  papers,  and  as  it  lies  before  us  we 
see  this  sentence :  "  If  we  know  God  and  believe  in 
him,  we  shall  be  filled  with  all  joy  and  peace  in  believ- 
ing, for  he  is  the  God  of  hope."  These  words  read  like 
prophecy.  We  have  seen  that  in  the  earlier  years  of 
Mr.  Clarke's  ministry  he  had  his  periods  of  discourage- 
ment, but  these  grew  less  and  less  frequent,  and  in 
after  years  he  literally  "abounded"  in  hope.  In  the 
darkest  hour  of  the  war  he  did  not  despair ;  under  the 
most  depressing  circumstances  of  life  he  always  saw 
light  shining  on  the  future.  We  think  that  the  infiii- 
ence  which  he  had  on  those  who  heard  him  preach 
came  in  a  measure  from  this  inspiring  element  of  hope. 
While  we  listened  to  him  all  good  seemed  possible 
to  us. 

This  hope  was  no  blind  optimism,  but  liad  its  roots 
in  faith,  —  faith  in  God,  faith  in  man.  His  faith  in  God 
as  the  Father  of  every  soul  which  he  has  created  was 
entire,  and  was  the  deep  foundation  on  which  all  else 
restel,  a  foundation  which  could  not  be  moved.  To 
him  God  was  an  ever-present  friend,  to  wliom  ho  could 
turn  at  any  moment  for  guidance  and  help;  and  this 


390  DIABY  AND  COREESPONDENCE. 

trust  in  the  Infinite  Love  was  the  staff  on  which  he 
leaned  in  all  times  of  weakness  or  perplexity.  Some- 
times, after  returning  home  on  Sunday,  he  has  said, 
"  When  I  went  into  the  pulpit  this  morning  I  felt  weak 
and  unequal  to  the  service,  but  I  asked  that  the  souls 
before  me  might  be  fed  with  better  food  than  I  could 
give  them,  and  my  weakness  disappeared,  and  I  was 
helped  to  say  the  right  words.''  This  was  his  habit 
also  in  other  and  more  difficult  circumstances,  and  this 
assurance  of  the  nearness  of  God  was  the  secret  of  his 
great  happiness  in  his  work.  The  sense  of  responsibil- 
ity for  results,  under  which  so  many  faithful  souls  are 
weighed  down,  was  made  less  heavy  to  him  by  the  con- 
viction that  what  was  demanded  of  him  was  faithful- 
ness, but  that  to  an  over-ruling  Providence  belonged 
all  the  issues  of  life  and  work. 

And  he  had  faith  in  his  fellow-men.^  He  delighted 
in  reading  the  lives  of  saints  and  heroes  and  martyrs 
of  every  age  and  every  land,  Pagan  and  Christian, 
Catholic  and  Protestant.  They  all  testified  to  the  di- 
vine life,  manifested  in  the  human ;  and  all  were  a 
prophecy  of  the  future  of  the  race.  When  he  was  last 
in  London,  the  monument  in  Westminster  Abbey  which 
appealed  most  to  his  feelings  was  the  simple  stone  to 
the  memory  of  David  Livingstone,  one  of  the  martyrs, 
of  whose  influence  among  the  simple  Africans  he  could 
not  speak  without  emotion. 

Through  the  weaknesses  and  faults  of  human  nature 
he  saw  the  hidden  good  which  would  one  day  conquer 
the  evil ;  if  not  here,  then  elsewhere.  Did  any  one 
treat  him  rudely  he  would  say,  "  That  is  only  want  of 
tact ;  he  did  not  mean  it."     Did  he  happen  to  hear  of 

1  A  younger  minister  wrote  to  him  in  1864,  "I  want  to  thank  you 
for  words  you  said  to  me  when  first  I  came  to  you  six  years  ag-o. 
You  bade  me  take  the  expectant  attitude ;  to  expect  men  and  women 
to  be  generous  and  noble.  I  think  that  I  have  done  so,  and  the  re- 
sult has  been  as  you  said  :   I  find  them  generous  and  noble." 


THE  MAN.  391 

an  unkind  remark,  "  He  has  not  the  gift  of  language ; 
that  does  not  really  express  his  meaning."  Did  a  pub- 
lic orator  take  unwarrantable  liberty  with  facts,  "  The 
danger  of  a  platform  speaker  is  the  temptation  to  aim 
at  immediate  effect." 

But  he  would  speak  to  a  man  face  to  face  about  his 
faults,  though  he  would  not  listen  to  any  discussion  of 
them  if  the  man  were  absent.  This  frankness  early 
won  him  the  regard  of  other  lovers  of  truth.  A  few 
days  before  the  death  of  his  good  friend  Judge  Speed, 
Mr.  Clarke  saw  him  in  his  chamber.  After  he  had  taken 
leave,  the  judge  followed  him  with  his  eyes  as  he  left 
the  room,  and  then  turning  to  those  standing  by  his 
bed-side,  he  uttered  the  one  word  "  Truth-teller."  When 
this  was  repeated  to  Mr.  Clarke,  by  one  of  the  family, 
he  was  much  moved. 

Under  his  own  roof  every  one,  of  whatever  age,  was 
left  free  to  do  what  seemed  to  him  right,  and  it  was 
taken  for  granted  that  whatever  was  done  had  been 
done  with  good  intentions.  There  was  no  criticism,  no 
faultfinding.  When  mistakes  happened  it  was  not  dif- 
ficult to  confess  them,  for  no  subsequent  allusion  would 
ever  recall  the  circumstance. 

And  this  w^as  also  true  in  regard  to  his  relations  with 
the  world  outside  of  his  home.  It  was  enough  if  a 
man  saw  that  he  was  wrong  and  turned  to  the  right ; 
no  word  in  after  years  would  ever  remind  him  of  a 
painful  past.  Often  we  have  heard  Mr.  Clarke  say, 
"  You  cannot  help  a  man  unless  you  first  love  him ; " 
and  to  him  this  first  step  presented  no  difficulty.  This 
too,  came  from  his  unwavering  faith,  his  illimitable 
hope. 

He  said  of  himself  that  by  nature  he  had  a  quick  tem- 
per, but  that  while  still  a  child  he  had  resolved  to  con- 
quer it.  To  those  who  remember  how  he  bore  himself 
under  provocation  in  after  life,  it  will  be  difficult  to  be- 
lieve, without  his  own  authority  for  it,  that  his  patience 


392  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

and  serenity  were  not  gifts  of  nature.  B.  P.  Winslow, 
his  college  chum,  afterwards  his  parishioner,  and  al- 
ways his  friend,  maintained  that  during  his  life  at  the 
university  he  manifested  a  remarkably  good  temper. 

It  was  his  good  fortune  to  have  a  forgiving  disposi- 
tion. This  saved  him  from  harboring  at  any  time  a 
sense  of  personal  injury.  If  a  false  accusation  caused  a 
momentary  feeling  of  indignation,  the  feeling  subsided 
almost  as  quickly  as  it  rose.  He  had  better  things  to 
think  of,  and  he  did  not  waste  his  time  in  considering 
what  others  said  about  him. 

On  one  occasion  a  public  attack  was  made  upon  him 
by  a  man  whose  misrepresentations  had  the  effect  of 
wounding  him  ;  and  he  departed  from  his  better  method 
of  silence,  and  sat  down  to  write  a  reply.  But  the 
habit  of  dwelling  on  all  that  is  best  and  noblest  in  every 
one  was  too  strong  for  him ;  and,  as  his  adversary  had 
been  active  in  a  number  of  important  reforms,  Mr. 
Clarke's  pen  was  soon  led  into  a  glowing  eulogy  of  the 
man  and  his  services.  By  the  time  he  had  written  a 
few  pages  in  this  strain,  he  was  not  in  a  mood  for  con- 
troversy, and  was  glad  to  forget  the  whole  matter. 

But  though  he  readily  forgot  a  seeming  injustice,  he 
did  not  forget  the  kindness  which  met  him  everywhere, 
and  which  he  often  declared  to  be  out  of  all  proportion 
to  his  deserts.  "  We  none  of  us  deserve  to  be  loved," 
he  said,  "but  being  loved  makes  us  more  deserving 
than  anything  else  can." 

Some  of  his  friends  smiled  at  his  once  saying  he 
thought  the  young  people  of  to-day  had  better  manners 
than  was  formerly  the  case.  He  had  lately  returned 
from  his  summer's  vacation,  and  "  all  the  young  people 
were  so  kind,  so  attentive,  so  respectful,  so  courteous." 

Words  of  apology,  and  of  frank  confession  of  error 
or  fault,  so  difficult  to  many,  were  easy  to  him.  He 
was  always  ready,  almost  eager  to  say,  "  It  was  7n?/ 
fault  "  —  "/was  to  blame  "  —  "  Forgive  me  "  —  "I  am 


THE  MAN.  393 

sorry,  dear  friend,  to  have  done  anything  that  grieves  or 
wounds  you." 

When  friends  asked  him  his  secret  for  keeping  young 
and  vigorous  he  would  sometimes  reply  with  a  smile, 
"I  never  worry."  When  the  "Herald  of  Health" 
wished  to  obtain  articles  on  the  "  health  and  working 
habits  of  prominent  thinkers,  as  described  by  them- 
selves," Mr.  Clarke  wrote,  May  9,  1885  :  — 

I  find  myself  at  the  age  of  seventy-five  still  able  to 
do  a  good  deal  of  work,  and  I  attribute  it,  under  Provi- 
dence, to  the  following  causes  :  — 

1.  I  am  not  of  an  anxious  temperament ;  I  do  not 
worry.  I  am  not,  to  any  great  extent,  annoyed  by  dis- 
appointments or  failure  ;  and  it  has  never  disturbed  me 
when  I  have  been  censured,  so  long  as  I  believed  I  was 
doing  right. 

2.  I  have  a  great  faculty  for  sleeping.  Although 
able  to  keep  awake,  when  necessary,  without  injury,  I 
can  always  fall  asleep  at  any  moment  when  sleep  seems 
desirable.  These  fragments  of  rest  are,  no  doubt,  of 
great  service  to  me. 

3.  I  have  always,  from  childhood,  been  fond  of  out- 
door exercise.  I  began  to  ride  on  horseback  when 
about  eight  years  old ;  and  when  a  lad  I  joined  with  de- 
light in  all  out-of-door  sports,  —  skating,  swimming, 
rowing,  and  playing  ball ;  and  also  in  indoor  athletic 
exercises,  such  as  fencing,  boxing,  and  gymnastics. 
But  all  these  belonged  to  an  early  period  of  my  life. 

4.  I  have  few  fixed  habits  and  am  fond  of  change. 
When  I  have  done  anything  in  one  way  for  a  few  times, 
I  enjoy  doing  it  differently.  But  if  this  tendency  has 
its  advantages,  it,  on  the  other  hand,  prevents  me  from 
receiving  the  benefit  which  comes  from  established 
methods  of  work. 

5.  Although,  when  young,  I  smoked,  I  have  not  used 
tobacco  since  I  was  about  twenty.     In  half  a  century  I 


394  DIARY  AND  COBRESPONDENCE. 

have  only  smoked  two  cigars,  and  those  only  because  I 
happened  to  be  where  the  air  was  malarious. 

6.  Finally,  I  love  work,  and  especially  brain  work. 
My  professional  duties  as  a  clergyman  have  been  to  me 
a  source  of  great  happiness.  I  have  also  written  several 
books,  and  many  articles  for  the  press  ;  and  I  believe 
that  this  kind  of  work  has  been  beneficial  to  my 
health. 

There  is  an  impression  that  it  was  his  custom  to  post- 
pone all  consideration  of  his  sermon  until  an  early  hour 
on  Sunday  morning.  This  is  a  mistake.  In  his  diary 
of  January  1,  1866,  he  says,  "I  believe  I  never  before 
began  and  finished  a  whole  sermon  before  breakfast  on 
Sunday  morning,  though  I  have  often  done  it  before 
church."  But  he  had  his  sermon  in  his  mind  during 
the  week,  and  it  was  gradually  taking  shape  before 
Sunday  came.  Indeed,  he  more  often  than  not  began  to 
write  his  sermon  at  least  as  early  as  Saturday.  His 
diaries  show  this,  and  in  late  years  the  sermon,  partly 
written,  usually  lay  on  his  study  table  Saturday  night, 
ready  to  be  continued  about  four  o'clock  on  Sunday 
morning. 

In  his  little  story  of  "  Deacon  Herbert's  Bible  Class," 
the  minister  begins  his  sermon  on  Tuesday  morning, 
and  we  may  infer  that  Mr.  Clarke  would  recommend 
this  as  a  good  plan.  But  what  he  says  is  true,  that  he, 
himself,  had  no  fixed  habits,  and  was  very  spontaneous 
in  his  methods  of  work. 

In  a  less  important  department  of  life  he  said  of  him- 
self, ^'I  am  very  methodical,  but  very  disorderly.  I 
have  a  place  for  everything,  but  put  nothing  in  its 
place.  I  arrange  systematically  for  every  different 
thing,  and  then  mix  all  things  together.  I  have  a  cabi- 
net for  sermons,  and  put  into  it  newspaper  cuttings  and 
carpenter's  tools.  Portfolios  and  boxes,  marked  and 
labeled,  never  contain  the  things  they  are  said  to,  but 


THE  MAN.  395 

something  else.  So  with  pigeon  holes  for  letters,  an- 
swered and  unanswered." 

We  may  perhaps  be  allowed  to  say  here  that  though 
no  harm  resulted  from  this  want  of  order  while  his  pos- 
sessions were  few  and  his  memory  at  its  best,  yet,  when 
the  manuscripts,  printed  articles,  pamphlets,  paper  cut- 
tings, and  other  furnishings  of  a  minister's  study  had 
been  accumulating  for  years,  it  was  sometimes  difficult 
to  lay  his  hands  on  an  article  wanted  at  a  moment's 
notice.  But  whether  the  search  were  successful  or  not, 
his  good  nature  was  never  to  be  reckoned  among  the 
things  lost  or  mislaid.  If  he  found  what  he  wanted  he 
was  pleased.  If  not,  he  cheerfully  managed  to  do  with- 
out it. 

However  spontaneous  he  may  have  been  in  his  meth- 
ods of  work,  there  was  a  unity  in  his  character  from 
boyhood  to  the  end.  His  progress  was  continually 
along  the  same  lines  of  development.  There  were  no 
abrupt  departures  in  new  directions.  Changes  there 
were,  certainly ;  but  these  came  gradually.  One  of  the 
most  noticeable,  when  we  compare  the  earlier  years 
with  the  later,  was  in  his  growing  neglect  of  contro- 
versy. In  the  "Western  Messenger"  days,  and  for 
years  after,  he  seemed  to  enjoy  an  opportunity  to  stand 
face  to  face  with  an  opponent  over  any  matter  which, 
with  the  enthusiasm  of  youth,  he  regarded  as  of  impor- 
tance. He  appeared  to  hold  his  lance  ready  at  a  mo- 
ment's notice  for  the  service  of  any  worthy  cause  in 
need  of  a  champion.  But  as  he  found  that  the  years 
were  not  long  enough  for  the  more  important  work 
which  he  had  at  heart,  the  unnecessary  skirmishing  lost 
its  attraction.  Sometimes  the  old  zeal  would  revive, 
and  he  would  write  a  reply  to  something  which  had  at- 
tracted his  attention  in  a  book  or  elsewhere,  but  when 
finished  the  manuscript  would  often  be  thrown  aside. 
"  I  have  had  the  satisfaction  of  writing  it,"  he  would 
say,   "I  do  not  care  about   its  being  printed."     And 


396  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

finally  even  this  outlet  was  unnecessary.  The  fire  of 
youth  had  given  place  to  the  maturer  wisdom  which 
comes  with  an  ever-widening  field  of  thought  and  ac- 
tion. 

But  the  central  convictions  with  which  he  began  his 
ministry  were  the  same  which  he  held  to  its  close,  only 
strengthened  by  the  experiences  of  his  life.  And  from 
first  to  last  his  aims  were  essentially  the  same,  though 
the  years  brought  a  better  knowledge  of  methods. 

On  his  seventieth  birthday,  a  friend  who  had  known 
him  for  sixty  years  alluded  to  his  first  appearance  at 
the  Latin  School.  His  youthful  look  was  then  en- 
hanced by  his  curls,  which  a  fond  grandmother  had  not 
allowed  to  be  cut  off.  The  boys  at  first  thought  that 
the  new  scholar  would  be  a  promising  subject  for  their 
^'  chaff."  But  James  had  an  elder  brother  who  was  not 
a  non-resistant,  and  he  had  counseled  the  little  fellow, 
in  case  there  were  any  aggressive  measures,  to  "  strike 
out  from  the  shoulder."  This  advice  was  followed,  and 
as  a  result  he  was  soon  accorded  his  rightful  place  in 
that  miniature  world,  the  Boston  Public  Latin  School. 
We  would  not  mention  this  boyish  incident,  but  that  it 
shows,  though  on  a  very  low  plane,  the  fearlessness  of 
nature  which,  in  after  years,  led  him  to  climb  to  the  top 
of  Salisbury,  and  Antwerp,  and  Strasburg  spires,  and 
on  a  much  higher  plane  of  life  to  advocate  unpopular 
reforms,  and  to  stand  firm  in  any  course  which  seemed 
to  him  right.  He  always  had  the  courage  of  his  convic- 
tions, and  this  too  had  its  root  in  faith,  a  firm  belief 
that  in  the  end  good  must  overcome  every  form  of  evil. 

We  have  spoken  of  his  ready  sympathy  with  chil- 
dren, and  the  ease  with  which  he  put  him'self  into  rela- 
tions with  them.  They  felt  that  he  loved  them,  and 
they  responded,  as  children  will,  when  they  see  that 
their  teacher  is  also  their  friend. 

When  he  had  been  a  year  in  the  divinity  school  the 
death  of  his  father  made  it  necessary  that  he  and  other 


THE  MAN.  397 

members  of  tlie  family  should  earn  som(>tliing  for  the 
support  of  the  household.  He  accordingly  left  Cam- 
bridge, and  during  one  winter  kept  a  school  at  Cam- 
bridgeport,  living,  however,  in  Boston,  with  the  family. 
Among  his  pupils  was  a  boy  who  was  very  slow  in 
learning  arithmetic,  and  much  time  and  patience  were 
required  before  the  child  could  be  made  to  see  the  prop^ 
erties  of  figures.  It  was  a  happy  moment  for  both 
teacher  and  scholar  when  success  came  at  last ;  and  it 
was  pleasant  to  hear  Mr.  Clarke  tell  of  this  experience, 
into  which  he  had  evidently  put  much  heart  and 
thought.  "  Ah,"  he  said,  "  people  talk  of  the  pleasure 
of  teaching  a  bright  child ;  that  is  nothing  to  the  pleas- 
ure of  teaching  a  dull  one.  When  you  have  tried  and 
tried,  apparently  without  success,  and  then  see,  at  last, 
the  poor  little  face  brighten  up  with  the  illumination  of 
a  new  idea,  that  is  a  real  delight." 

On  one  occasion  when  he  had  taken  part  in  a  school 
celebration  where  a  number  of  addresses  were  on  the 
programme,  he  came  home  and  told  exultingly  how  he 
had  saved  the  children  from  being  obliged  to  listen  to 
some  of  the  addresses  which  had  been  planned.  He 
had  noticed  that  they  were  growing  tired,  and,  when 
his  turn  came  for  talking  to  them,  his  speech  consisted 
only  of  a  proposal  that  the  exercises  should  be  consid- 
ered ended,  and  the  children  released. 

"  Oh,  how  they  shouted  and  hurrahed  when  I  finished 
my  little  speech,"  he  said,  laughing  heartily  as  he  told 
the  story. 

Of  the  readiness  with  which  he  put  himself  en  rap- 
povt  with  a  class  of  boys  usually  irrepressible,  this  illus- 
tration is  furnished  us  by  Kev.  J.  L.  Seward.  *^  Mr. 
Clarke  was  once  addressing  a  great  audience  in  irunting- 
ton  Hall,  Lowell.  The  crowd  comprised  the  most  intel- 
ligent and  the  least  intelligent  inhabitants  of  the  city. 
The  boys  in  the  gallery  had  greatly  disturbed  ])revious 
meetings  by  walking  out  with  much  noise  in  the  midst 


398  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

of  the  services.  On  the  night  of  Mr.  Clarke's  discourse 
the  customary  pedestrianisra  began.  Looking  at  the 
gallery,  he  said  in  his  inimitable  way,  ^  Young  men,  I 
presume  some  of  you  hardly  know  why  you  came  here 
at  all  to-night,  and  perhaps  you  feel  badly  cheated  by 
the  performance ;  but  I  hope  for  the  sake  of  these  good 
friends  who  try  to  listen  that  you  will  bear  your  disap- 
pointment with  as  much  patience  as  you  can,  and  let  us 
have  peace.'  The  effect  of  his  words  was  magical,  and 
scarcely  another  fellow  left  the  hall." 

He  had  a  happy  faculty  of  guiding  meetings  for  dis- 
cussion. A  minister  whom  he  was  advising  to  hold 
meetings  for  social  conversation  on  religious  subjects 
replied,  "That  is  all  very  well  for  you,  James,  for  if 
any  one  were  to  say  the  most  absurd  thing  that  can  be 
imagined  you  would  answer,  '  Yes,  from  some  points  of 
view  there  seems  to  be  something  in  that,'  and  you 
would  really  find  something  quite  interesting  in  it.  But 
not  everybody  can  do  that." 

"  I  should  not  be  afraid  to  say  anything  in  his  Bible- 
class,  however  stupid,"  was  the  remark  of  one  of  the 
younger  members  of  the  class. 

He  had  especial  skill  in  presiding  over  meetings 
where  differing  elements  were  to  be  harmonized.  We 
recall  an  occasion  when,  at  the  Meionaon,  he  was  pre- 
siding over  a  meeting  free  to  all  comers.  Orthodox  or 
atheist,  Methodist  or  Unitarian,  minister  or  layman, 
man  or  woman,  learned  or  ignorant,  the  only  condition 
being  that  no  one  should  occupy  the  floor  more  than 
five  minutes.  It  happened  that  the  first  person  who 
wanted  to  speak  was  a  man  whom  many  present  did  not 
wish  to  hear,  and  there  were  noisy  demonstrations  to 
that  effect.  Mr.  Clarke  reminded  the  audience  that  the 
meeting  was  free  to  all,  and,  turning  to  the  speaker, 
said  courteously,  '•'  I  will  hold  up  my  watch  at  the  end 
of  five  minutes,  and  I  am  sure  the  gentleman  will  then 
yield  the  floor."  The  audience  became  quiet,  and  the 
man  after  speaking  five  minutes  sat  down. 


THE  MAN.  399 

During  the  years  in  which  he  was  a  trustee  of  the 
Boston  Public  Library,  he  had  the  good  of  the  institu- 
tion much  at  heart,  and  was  regular  in  his  attendance 
at  all  business  meetings.  But  the  work  was  not  wholly 
without  compensation,  for  he  enjoyed  the  atmosijhere 
of  a  great  library,  and  spent  many  happy  hours  there. 
A  little  story  of  one  of  his  visits  in  the  early  years  of 
his  connection  with  it  is  thus  told  by  an  officer  of  long 
standing  in  the  library.  "  His  habit  was  to  walk  in 
and  look  about  quietly,  with  a  pleasant  smile  and  a 
courteous  word  to  all  that  he  met.  He  would  occasion- 
ally take  a  book  from  the  shelf,  glance  over  it,  read  a 
little,  and  always  carefully  return  it  to  its  place.  I 
said  to  him  one  day,  '  Why  do  you  trouble  yourself  to  do 
that?  The  attendant  will  do  it.'  ^No,'  he  replied,  'I 
will  not  make  him  any  extra  work.'  One  day  his  saun- 
terings  and  browsings  were  anxiously  watched  by  a 
young  attendant,  new  to  the  place,  and  seriously  im- 
pressed by  the  notices  that  '  Visitors  must  not  handle 
the  books  without  permission,'  and  very  much  troubled 
by  the  doings  of  this  pleasant-looking  gentleman,  who 
did  not  seem  to  realize  that  he  was  breaking  rules. 
After  a  short  time  she  reluctantly  approached  him,  and 
said,  ^Excuse  me,  sir,  the  public  are  not  allowed  to 
handle  our  books.'  The  poor  child  could  hardly  recover 
her  breath  after  this  great  effort,  when  Dr.  Clarke, 
turning  in  his  leisurely  manner,  said,  'But  I  am  not  the 
public,  I  am  a  trustee,'  and  as  she  hastily  endeavored  to 
excuse  herself  for  having  questioned  his  rights,  he  said, 
*  There  is  nothing  to  excuse,  but  everything  to  com- 
mend ;  you  are  faithful  to  a  trust.'  I  was  near  enough 
to  see  and  hear,  but  they  were  not  aware  of  my  proxim- 
ity. Dr.  Clarke  never  forgot  the  girl ;  his  name  for  her 
was  '  our  faithful  girl,'  and  he  often  inquired  for  her  in 
his  visits." 

Of  his  interest  in  young  men  entering  the  ministry, 
Rev.  A.  D.  Mayo  writes  :  "  I  went  into  Freeman  l*lace 


400  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

Cliapel  one  evening,  and  Mr.  Clarke,  seeing  me,  invited 
me  to  come  into  the  pulpit  and  preach.  Out  of  this 
kindly  welcome  grew  up  a  delightful  acquaintance  for 
the  remaining  six  years  of  my  first  ministry  in  Xew 
England.  To  me,  a  young  man  entering  the  profession 
without  the  usual  preparation,  his  fatherly  kindness  and 
interest  were,  naturally,  the  most  prominent  feature  of 
his  gracious  personality.  I  recognized  his  gifts  as  a 
preacher  and  writer,  but  this  sight  of  him  was  subordi- 
nate to  the  affection  of  a  young  man  so  generously  ac- 
cepted by  a  revered  superior.  I  remember,  especially, 
one  day  when  a  long  out-of-door  talk  with  him  confirmed 
my  purpose  to  seek  a  Western  ministry." 

He  believed  that  ever}^  one  owed  to  his  country  the 
duty  of  voting.  In  a  letter  written  while  still  in  Louis- 
ville, he  speaks  of  the  intensely  warm  August  weather, 
from  which  cause,  in  connection  with  work  for  the  pub- 
lic schools,  he  is  "  fairly  worn  out,"  and  adds,  "  I  must 
vote  on  Monday,  like  a  good  citizen,  and  then  I  think  I 
shall  leave.  Half  of  my  society  have  gone  to  the 
East." 

During  the  earlier  years  of  his  residence  at  Jamaica 
Plain,  the  place  for  voting  was  about  a  mile  distant, 
and  he  and  his  hired  man  were  accustomed  to  drive 
there  together.  Mr.  Clarke  went  first  into  the  building, 
and  voted  the  Eepublican  ticket.  Then  he  remained 
with  the  horse  while  his  man  went  in  and  voted  the 
Democratic  ticket.  On  one  occasion  when  the  election 
day  was  stormy,  Mr.  Clarke  suggested  to  his  Democratic 
friend  that  they  should  pair  off  and  stay  at  home.  The 
man's  countenance  did  not  express  assent,  and  j\Ir. 
Clarke  made  haste  to  say,  "  You  are  right,  we  will  both 
go  to  the  polls,  and  vote." 

In  one  of  these  later  years  a  lady  asked  him  at  a 
musical  party  whether  he  were  fond  of  music.  He  told 
her  just  how  far  his  interest  went,  which  a  connoisseur 
would  say  was  not  far,  and  added,  "  I  am  really  glad  I 


THE  MAN.  401 

have  not  an  interest  in  music,  in  addition  to  so  many 
others ;  I  am  afraid  it  would  be  the  last  straw." 

But  he  was  so  well  rounded,  and  put  so  much  heart 
into  every  duty,  that  he  had  all  the  joy  of  eventful  liv- 
ing. In  literary  and  social  circles  he  was  always  wel- 
come. It  is  a  pity  that  we  can  give  no  adequate  idea 
of  him  as  a  member  of  the  social  circle ;  of  the  charm  of 
his  conversation ;  the  simplicity  with  which  he  would 
drop  into  talk  on  the  most  serious  themes  ;  while  he 
also  enjoyed,  as  much  as  any  one,  amusements  and 
recreations  which  came  to  him  without  his  going  out  of 
his  way  to  seek  them.  , 

A  lady,  who  is  an  ornament  of  society  and  a  leader  in 
educational  and  philanthropic  circles,  once  took  him  to 
a  great  ball  in  Washington.  She  has  since  said  that  she 
looks  back  to  a  talk  there  with  Mr.  Clarke  about  the 
future  life  as  one  of  the  most  helpful  conversations  that 
she  ever  had.  To  those  about  them  they  seemed  to  be 
looking  at  the  gay  throng  before  them,  but  he  had  fallen 
naturally  into  discourse  upon  a  subject  which  was  never 
far  from  his  thoughts. 

Of  his  home-life  Rev.  William  L.  Chaffin  has  given 
these  pleasant  reminiscences  :  — 

As  I  said  to  you,  some  men  look  well  through  the 
telescope,  but  not  under  the  microscope.  James  Free- 
man Clarke  would  bear  examination  under  either,  and 
my  sight  of  him  in  his  own  home  gave  me  the  highest 
opinion  of  him  I  had. 

I  especially  remember  him  as  we  gathered  in  the 
morning  at  the  table.  When  all  were  there,  he  would 
have  a  moment's  talk  with  God,  his  voice  hardly  raised 
above  a  whisper,  yet  distinctly  audible,  so  quiet,  so  rev- 
erent, so  confiding  in  his  manner,  that  we  all  felt  God 
was  right  there.  I  can  remember  he  would  say  :  "  We 
thank  thee,  our  Father,  for  the  rest  and  quiet  of  the 
night,  for  the  morning  light,  for  the  new  thought,  the 


402  DIABY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

new  hope  and  love  tliou  givest  us,"  —  and  so  on,  in  such 
a  grateful  and  loving  way  that  one  could  not  help  being 
touched  and  blessed. 

I  was  much  impressed  by  his  manner  towards  chil- 
dren. You  know  Mr.  Clarke  was  a  good  listener.  One 
saw  he  was  paying  heed  to  Avhat  one  was  saying,  and 
was  not  intent  upon  what  he  would  say  next.  But  he 
was  a  good  listener  to  children.  If  they  expressed  fool- 
ish oi)inions,  he  did  not  directly  correct  or  reprove.  He 
would  quietly  ask  questions,  set  them  thinking,  and 
gradually  lead  them  out  of  their  unwise  notions,  giv- 
ing them  the  impression,  no  doubt,  that  they  had  thought 
themselves  out  of  them.  This  maintained  their  self- 
respect,  gave  them  confidence  to  express  themselves, 
and  nourished  their  love  for  him. 

He  was  in  Meadville  while  ''  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  was 
being  printed  in  the  "National  Era."  One  day  his 
daughter  Lilian,  full  of  excitement,  came  rushing  for 
one  of  her  companions,  and  told  her  that  another  chapter 
of  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin "  had  come,  and  her  father 
would  read  it  to  them.  They  went  to  his  study,  and  sat 
together  on  the  rug  before  the  open  fire,  he  in  his  study 
chair  on  one  side,  and  he  then  read  the  chapter  narrat- 
ing the  escape  of  Eliza.  He  was  an  excellent  reader, 
and  to  these  two  girls  it  was  thrilling,  and  made  an  im- 
pression never  to  be  forgotten. 

Is  not  this  an  interesting  picture,  these  two  little 
girls,  about  nine  and  eleven  years  old,  sitting  in  the 
flickering  firelight  on  the  rug,  eagerly  intent  on  the 
story  he  was  so  glad  to  read  to  them  ? 

My  wife  remembers  that  at  Meadville,  at  the  family 
gatherings,  he  was  the  leader  in  the  entertainment  of 
the  children  in  that  part  of  the  day  that  was  devoted  to 
them,  as  a  part  of  it  always  was.  He  was  quite  a  ven- 
triloquist, and  gave  them  great  amusement  in  carrying 
on  conversations  between  a  gentleman  in  one  room  and 
his  hired  man  in  another  ;  also  in  imitation  of  the  voices 
of  animals,  and  in  other  ways. 


THE  MAN.  403 

My  wife  also  remembers  another  thing  very  grate- 
fully. She  came  as  a  little  girl  from  Xewburyport  to 
go  to  Mr.  Clarke's  on  a  visit.  He  kindly  met  her  at 
the  station  in  Boston,  and  took  her  out  to  Koxbury  in 
an  omnibus.  After  a  while  all  but  they  two  had  got 
out.  He  noticed  that  the  little  girl  was  blue  and  home- 
sick, and  drawing  her  towards  him,  he  entertained  her 
all  the  way  out  with  fairy  and  other  stories,  changing 
what,  but  for  his  tender  sympathy,  would  have  been  a 
dark  and  lonesome  hour  into  one  of  the  happiest  hours 
and  one  of  the  brightest  recollections  of  her  life. 

He  was  an  ideal  traveling  companion,  interested  in 
everything  to  be  seen  ;  and,  when  there  was  nothing  to 
be  seen,  producing  from  his  inexhaustible  memory  story 
or  poem  to  beguile  the  hours.  He  had  at  his  command 
all  the  best  poems  in  the  English  language.  On  a  rainy 
day,  shut  up  with  friends  in  a  stage-coach,  he  would 
help  those  about  him  to  forget  the  prosaic  present,  and 
live  for  the  time  in  a  world  of  infinite  beauty  or  gran- 
deur. And  sailing  on  the  Bay  of  Naples,  or  sitting  by 
a  camp-fire  in  the  Adirondacks,  he  would  give  to  the 
scene  the  added  charm  of  words  in  which  a  poet  ha(l 
sung  the  beauty  of  Nature.  He  did  not,  however,  travel 
without  books.  His  hand-bag  was  filled  with  them  ; 
and  in  the  breast-pocket  of  his  coat  was  apt  to  be  a  copy 
of  Horace,  a  favorite  with  him  from  boyhood  through- 

out  his  life.  ,  •       4.     o 

Of  a  journey  taken  in  his  company,  when  gonig  to  a 
Western  conference,  Kev.  S.  W.  Bush  says  :  — 

A  party  of  six  or  eight  friends  traveled  in  an  indosrd 
stateroom,  in  a  parlor  car,  and  sat  around  a  table  m  the 
privacy  of  friendly  intercourse.  To  travel  with  a  trieiul 
in  this  way  is  to  put  him  to  a  real  test.  H  he  has  any 
weak  spots  they  will  be  sure  to  show  themselves.  Mr. 
Clarke,   under  this   test,  was  a  charming  companion. 


404  DIABY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

While  lie  never  lost  his  grave  and  slow  manner  of  speak- 
ing, he  was  a  very  interesting  story-teller.  He  was  a 
keen  observer  of  men,  and  what  he  saw  as  well  as  what 
he  read  was  stored  in  his  retentive  memory.  He  had 
the  dramatic  talent  of  impersonation  and  flashing  wit 
and  playfulness,  so  that  in  his  talk  of  men  he  repro- 
duced admirable  portraitures  of  character.  In  addition, 
he  had  a  love  of  the  beautiful  in  nature,  which  kin- 
dled his  imagination. 

We  reached  Niagara  between  nine  and  ten  in  the 
evening.  The  moon  was  out  in  full  splendor,  and  the 
lights  and  shadows  produced  beautiful  and  picturesque 
effects.  As  the  cars,  in  crossing  the  bridge,  slackened 
their  speed,  he  sat  on  the  steps  of  the  sleeping-car  and 
gazed  in  silence  at  the  falls,  with  their  deep  roar,  while 
the  spray  danced  in  the  moonbeams.  Not  a  word  fell 
from  his  lips.  The  next  morning,  before  breakfast,  he 
read  us  a  poem  which  he  had  written. 

With  all  this  he  recognized  the  adage  of  the  wise 
man  that  there  is  a  time  to  speak  and  a  time  to  be  silent ; 
so  he  never  wearied  us  by  incessant  talk,  but  had  his 
refreshing  pauses.  The  more  intimately  one  knew  him, 
the  more  impressed  he  was  with  the  thorough  reality 
of  the  man.  He  was  as  true  and  genuine  in  the  palace 
car  as  a  familiar  traveling  companion  as  he  was  when 
preaching  in  the  pulpit  at  Milwaukee,  before  the  West- 
ern conference. 

But  though  his  memory  was  retentive  of  the  books  he 
had  read,  the  poems  he  had  enjoyed,  the  scenes  through 
which  he  had  passed,  it  did  not  serve  him  so  faithfully 
in  regard  to  faces,  and  he  sometimes  had  the  mortifica- 
tion of  failing  to  recognize  friends  for  whom  he  had  a 
sincere  regard.  He  once  spent  some  days  at  Paris  in 
the  same  hotel  with  members  of  a  family  whose  house 
had  not  long  before  been  a  delightful  home  to  him 
when  on  a  visit  to  Washington,  and  of  whose  kindness 


THE  MAN.  405 

he  had  often  spoken.  After  he  had  met  them  two  or 
three  times  without  recognition,  the  lady  very  mag- 
nanimously sent  him  her  card,  and  thus  gave  him  an 
opportunity  to  explain  his  strange  conduct.  He  was 
exceedingly  mortified  at  having  mistaken  a  valued 
friend  for  a  stranger. 

Also,  when  absorbed  in  any  scene,  he  would  perhaps 
not  remember  the  people  who  had  been  about  him. 
One  day,  in  company  with  a  few  friends,  he  spent 
a  number  of  hours  in  visiting  the  Girls'  Industrial 
School  at  Lancaster.  In  the  evening  he  went  to  the 
weekly  meeting  of  his  church  at  the  vestry,  and  after 
greeting  one  and  another  of  those  present,  said  to  a 
parishioner  whom  he  had  long  known  well,  "  I  wish  you 
had  been  with  us  to-day  at  Lancaster."  "  I  ivas  with 
you  to-day  at  Lancaster,"  the  lady  calmly  replied. 

To  those  in  daily  intercourse  with  him,  his  abound- 
ing life  gave  a  sense  of  the  value  of  existence.  One 
saw  how  much  the  day  might  be  made  to  hold.  He 
was  always  working,  studying,  producing,  —  enjoying 
nature,  art,  books,  people.  He  climbed  mountains, 
sailed,  row^ed,  and  sat  up  all  night  on  the  roof  of  the 
house  to  observe  the  stars.  He  talked  with  theologians, 
he  played  with  children.  He  liked  to  go  on  journeys, 
but  was  apt  to  return  a  day  or  two  before  the  time  set, 
entering  the  house  with  a  radiant  air  of  satisfaction  at 
finding  himself  once  more  in  his  own  home. 

To  the  end  of  his  life  he  continued  to  have  the  ex- 
pectant outlook  of  youth. 

By  those  who  knew  him  chiefly  as  a  thinker  and 
writer,  or  who  heard  him  preach  on  special  occasions, 
the  trait  which  has  been  most  often  mentioned  was  his 
breadth  of  view,  his  fairness,  his  habit  of  looking  at  a 
question  on  all  sides.  Amoni:^  his  fellow-workers  on 
boards  or  committees,  he  was  liked  because  of  his  prac- 
tical wisdom  and  his  good-natured  adaptiveness.  In 
political  work,  his  fearlessness,  his  happy  gift  of  self- 


406  DIARY  AND  COBEESPONDENCE. 

possession,  and  his  ready  reply  during  discussion,  made 
him  a  useful  coadjutor. 

But  there  were  other  traits,  which  will  remain  longer 
in  the  memories  of  the  nearer  circle  with  whom  he  came 
into  more  intimate  relations.  He  was  what  our  ortho- 
dox friends  would  call  a  "  lover  of  souls,"  and  this  gave 
to  his  services  in  the  pulpit,  or  in  missionary  work,  a 
tenderness  and  sweetness  such  as  that  spoken  of  by  the 
minister  who  had  shared  his  visit  to  the  morning  prayer- 
meeting  in  another  city.  He  knew  that  he  himself 
could  not  live  without  the  sense  of  God's  nearness  at 
every  moment,  and  he  earnestly  endeavored  to  bring 
the  same  help  and  comfort  to  every  other  heart.  And 
from  his  implicit  trust  came  that  abounding  hope  of 
which  we  have  spoken,  which  surrounded  him  as  with 
an  atmosphere  of  sunshine.  His  hearers  would  leave 
the  church  to  take  up  again  the  duties  and  cares  of  life 
with  a  more  cheerful  courage.  A  friend,  who  spent  last 
summer  in  Maine,  found  in  a  country  place  a  working- 
man  who  seemed  in  advance  of  the  people  about  him, 
and  asked  him  the  secret  of  this  difference.  He  replied, 
"  It  is  owing  to  a  sermon  that  I  heard  James  Freeman 
Clarke  preach  here  years  ago ;  that  was  an  era  in  my 
life." 

His  cheerful  faith  and  warm  sympathy  gave  him  the 
power  to  bring  comfort  to  the  sorrowing,  and  to  impart 
hope  to  the  dying.  When  he  was  still  young  in  the 
ministry,  one  of  his  heaviest  burdens  was  to  be  called 
upon  to  bear  tidings  of  bereavement  to  a  happy  family 
circle  unconscious  of  loss.  After  a  time,  out  of  his 
feeling  of  helplessness  came  the  habit  of  leaning  wholly 
upon  God  in  all  times  when  a  more  than  human  wisdom 
was  needed,  and  by  many,  we  think,  he  will  be  remem- 
bered, more  than  in  all  other  ways,  as  "  the  comforter." 

When  he  compiled  his  service  book,  he  put  into  the 
funeral  service  some  of  the  usual  psalms  referring  to 
death;   but  before   long  he  ceased  to  use  these.     He 


THE  MAN.  407 

knew  from  his  own  experience  that  we  never  believe  so 
little  in  death  as  when  we  stand  by  the  open  grave,  and 
in  those  hours  he  appeared  to  reach  a  yet  deeper  faith 
and  a  higher  hope.  While  he  spoke,  the  heavens  seemed 
opened,  and  things  unseen  and  eternal  were  made  real 
to  sorrowing  hearts.     Death  was  swallowed  up  in  life. 


CHAPTER  XXL 

THE    END. 

By  the  advice  of  his  physician,  Dr.  Stedman,  Mr. 
Clarke  went,  in  the  latter  part  of  March,  1888,  to  Lake- 
wood,  in  New  Jersey,  to  escape  the  harsh  spring  winds 
of  New  England.  He  enjoyed  the  drives  he  was  able 
to  take  at  Lakewood,  and  occasionally  a  very  short 
walk.  But  the  greater  part  of  his  days  were  passed  on 
a  lounge.  He  liked  to  have  Mrs.  Clarke  read  to  him, 
but  he  was  able  also  to  read  himself,  and  even  wished 
to  share  with  her  and  his  daughter  anything  in  his  book 
which  he  especially  enjoyed.  The  diary  for  April  1st 
says  :  "  A.  read  aloud  the  last  two  chapters  of  John's 
G-ospel,  and  the  extracts  from  Martineau  in  the  ^  Chris- 
tian Eegister.'  At  eleven  1  walked  a  short  distance, 
rested  fifteen  minutes  on  a  door-step,  and  walked  back. 
After  tea,  A.  read  aloud  Dr.  Furness's  sermon  in  '  Chris- 
tian Register.' " 

That  his  daughter  in  Jamaica  Plain  might  receive 
something  from  his  own  hand  on  his  birthday  he 
wrote :  — 

Lakewood,  April  3,  1888. 

.  .  .  This  is  my  birthday  note  to  you,  brimful  of  love 
to  yourself  and  our  beloved  ones.  I  am  glad  I  have 
been  allowed  to  live  so  long.  My  life  has  been  very 
fortunate  and  happy ;  and  if  now  I  can  do  no  more  work, 
I  am  content  to  rest  amid  the  love  of  friends,  which  is 
the  best  part  of  our  human  life. 

When  April  4th  came  he  at  first  felt  a  little  like  an 


THE  END.  409 

exile ;  but  this  feeling  vanished  as  tokens  of  affection 
arrived  from  members  of  his  church  in  Boston,  and 
from  relatives  and  friends  in  other  places.  His  room 
was  bright  with  flowers,  and  he  was  made  happy  by  re- 
ceiving these  and  other  messages  of  remembrance.  The 
last  poem  which  he  wrote,  and  with  which  this  record 
of  his  life  ends,  was  dated  on  this  birthday. 

On  the  17th  of  April  he  sent  to  the  "  Christian  Keg- 
ister  "  an  article  on  the  Eevised  Version  of  the  New 
Testament. 

The  diary  is  broken  with  the  "  spraying  of  the 
throat"  and  "bad  fever  attack."  On  the  second  of 
May,  with  the  nominal  end  of  the  hard  New  England 
winter,  he  returned  home. 

He  was  still  able  to  drive  out.  On  the  9th  of  May  he 
married  two  young  friends.  On  the  13th  of  May  he 
preached  "  for  the  first  time,"  as  he  says  in  his  diary, 
and,  as  it  proved,  for  the  last  time.  The  text  was, 
"  Lead  us  not  into  temptation."  After  the  service  he 
sat  in  front  of  the  pulpit,  and  took  the  hand  of  many 
friends.  As  he  drove  home  he  said,  "  How  good  that 
was  ;  how  delightful  to  see  them  again  ! "  On  the  22d 
of  May  he  makes  the  memorandum,  "  Finish  sermon." 
As  late  as  the  11th  of  May  he  had  written  a  note  to  the 
"Transcript,"  suggesting  that  a  statue  of  Sir  Henry 
Vane  should  be  placed  in  front  of  the  new  Public  Li- 
brary. The  diary  stops,  with  declining  strength,  on  the 
27th  of  May.  The  day  before,  Dr.  Cheever  had  told  his 
family  that  there  was  no  hope  of  recovery. 

Dr.  Clarke  had  looked  forward  to  one  more  summer  at 
Magnolia,  like  the  seven  happy  summers  which  he  liad 
already  spent  at  his  own  house  there,  and  to  sailing 
with  Mr.  Foote  on  the  "  Sheila."  But,  when  he  knew 
that  there  was  to  be  no  renewing  of  physical  strength, 
all  his  hopes  turned  toward  the  future,  and  he  longed 
to  pass  into  that  other  life  where  he  never  doubted  that 
he  should  feel  as  much  at  home  as  here.     When  his 


410  DIARY  AND  COERESPONDENCE. 

friend,  Judge  Allen,  called  one  evening,  Mr.  Clarke 
asked  to  see  him.  He  wished  to  take  his  hand  once 
more  and  to  tell  him  of  the  good  he  had  received  from 
his  friendship.  He  was  able  to  take  leave  of  one  or 
two  other  dear  friends,  but  his  strength  was  rapidly 
failing,  and  he  could  say  very  little.  During  the  last 
days  of  May  the  annual  meetings  of  the  Unitarian  de- 
nomination were  being  held,  and  on  the  evening  of  the 
social  festival  those  present  were  told  from  the  plat- 
form that  he  would  never  meet  with  them  again.  A 
hush  fell  on  the  assembly,  and  when  a  message  of  love 
and  remembrance  was  framed,  the  thousand  men  and 
women  present  rose  and  stood  while  it  was  read.  He 
was  able  to  hear  the  message,  to  look  at  the  flowers  sent 
with  it,  and  to  be  cheered  by  this  token  of  sympathy 
from  friends  who  had  been  so  dear  to  him. 

Though  too  weak  to  talk,  he  could  sometimes  listen 
to  a  few  words.  A  sentence  was  read  to  him  from  a 
letter  which  expressed  gratitude  for  help  which  had 
come  from  his  writings.  He  said  softly,  *'  I  have  been 
greatly  blessed." 

One  day,  after  lying  quiet  a  long  time,  he  said, 
"Please  repeat  to  me  the  hymn,  ^ Abide  with  me.'" 
He  had  evidently  been  thinking  of  it,  but  there  were  a 
few  words  he  could  not  recall. 

He  expressed  his  undoubting  trust  in  a  reunion  here- 
after with  those  who  had  gone  before  and  those  who 
were  yet  to  follow  him.  From  day  to  day  his  bodily 
strength  failed,  but  his  mind  was  perfectly  clear  to  the 
last,  and  faith,  hope,  and  love  endured. 

Before  midnight  on  Friday,  the  8th  of  June,  1888,  he 
ceased  to  breathe. 

The  reader  of  this  biography  has  before  him  not  one 
in  a  hundred  of  the  memorials  of  unselfish,  loyal  work 
for  man  and  devotion  to  God,  which  it  has  been  my 
pleasure  to  examine  in  the  years  since  he  died,  while  I 


THE  END.  411 

have  been  trying  to  select  what  might  be  best  fitted  for 
this  biography.  It  is  an  instance  of  a  life  where  a  man 
gave  every  clay  steadily  to  this  or  that  duty  for  man- 
kind, entering  upon  it  with  positive  pleasure  because  it 
was  duty,  and  with  a  determination  to  do  it  as  well  as 
he  could,  quite  indifferent  to  the  credit  or  the  blame 
which  might  be  awarded  to  it  by  the  world.  His  phys- 
ical constitution,  in  early  life,  was  not  strong.  ]>ut 
the  determination  to  be  of  w^  in  God's  world  seems  to 
have  mastered  bodily  ailments,  and,  for  much  of  his  life, 
he  was  in  well-nigh  perfect  working  order.  "  He  is  my 
despair  as  he  is  my  admiration,"  was  the  testimony, 
while  he  lived,  of  one  of  his  classmates  and  near 
friends,  who  has  himself  rendered  the  highest  service 
to  mankind.  Such  work  as  came  to  him  to  do  he  did 
with  an  energy  and  directness  which  almost  commanded 
success.  And  then,  if  he  were  praised,  or  if  he  were 
blamed,  so  far  as  men  saw,  it  was  all  one.  I  have  seen 
him  receive  severe  and  sharp  criticism  of  his  course  or 
his  writing,  with  the  same  good-natured  smile  with 
which  he  would  have  received  a  compliment.  "Very 
likely  it  is  as  you  say,  but  I  did  as  well  as  I  knew  how." 
It  was  simply  impossible  to  quarrel  with  him ;  he  found 
fault  with  himself,  and  he  saw  no  reason  why  others 
should  not  find  fault  with  him. 

In  compiling  from  the  large  range  of  manusori])t 
memorials,  I  have  found  it  difficult  —  it  has  proved  im- 
possible —  rightly  to  preserve,  in  so  small  a  space,  the 
proper  perspective  of  his  life.  It  does  not  follow  that 
because  his  enterprises  in  any  regard  do  not  take  mucli 
space  on  paper,  they  did  not  take  a  large  place  in  his 
thought,  in  his  heart,  in  his  estimate  of  duty.  He 
would  spend  as  much  time  on  the  comfort  of  a  new- 
landed  exile  as  he  would  spend  upon  a  speech  to  a 
thousand  men,  or  as  he  would  give  to  the  occultation  of 
a  planet.  His  friends  may  find  that  I  have  passed  by 
work  and   success  which   they  value  as  important.     I 


412  DIAEY  AND  COBBESPONBENCE. 

can  only  ask  that  they  will  see  how  wide  was  the  field 
from  which  I  was  to  select.  It  is  not  a  life  which  pre- 
sents only  a  few  salient  points  for  study.  It  is  the  life 
of  an  unselfish  child  of  God,  of  tireless  determination, 
giving  himself  in  every  hour  for  the  service  of  man- 
kind. 

ON    DEATH. 

"  Therefore  we  come  a^last  to  think  nothing  about 
dying,  but  more  and  more  about  living.  "We  do  not 
desire  to  die  in  order  to  go  to  God,  for  God  is  with  us 
here,  on  this  side  as  much  as  on  the  other.  The  nearer 
death  comes,  the  less  Ave  believe  in  it.  Though  an  un- 
happy style  of  religion  has  sought  to  make  death  ter- 
rible, it  has  not  succeeded  in  doing  so.  God  fills  the 
heart  with  a  better  faith.  He  teaches  us  that  he,  the 
infinite  presence,  the  boundless  tenderness,  whose  joy 
is  to  pour  himself  out  in  nature  as  a  ceaseless  creator, 
to  make  his  myriad  creatures  full  of  gladness  here,  is 
the  same  God  who  will  be  with  us  there.  What  mat- 
ters it  when  we  cross  the  line  which  divides  this  world 
from  the  next  ?  It  is  only  an  imaginary  line,  like  that 
which  divides  two  States  of  our  Union.  AYe  pass  from 
Massachusetts  into  New  Hampshire,  and  we  do  not 
know  it,  for  there  is  the  same  scenery  around,  the  same 
sky  above,  the  same  sort  of  people,  speaking  the  same 
language.  So  it  will  be  when  we  pass  into  the  other 
life.  There  will  be  the  same  God  above,  the  same  soul 
within,  the  same  beauty  around  in  nature,  like  work  to 
do,  similar  objects  of  knowledge,  loving  hearts,  benign 
friendships,  and  an  eternal  progress.  Therefore  we 
keep  up  all  our  activities  to  the  end,  and  though  the 
outward  man  perishes,  the  inward  man  is  renewed  day 
by  day." 

"  If  in  a  long  life  I  have  gained  anything  which  is 
worth  keeping,  it  is  the  knowledge  and  friendship  and 


THE  END.  413 

love  of  pure,  generous,  noble  souls.  Am  I  to  lose  that 
great  inheritance  ?  Am  I  to  go  into  the  other  world 
poor,  lonely,  homesick?  I  do  not  so  understand  tlie 
lessons  of  experience  or  the  facts  of  observation,  ^^'hen 
all  other  memory  fades  from  the  mind  of  the  dying, 
when  his  thoughts  are  bewildered,  the  impressions  of 
time  effaced,  he  still  shows  by  a  faint  pressure  of  the 
hand  that  love  remains.  The  last  look  of  the  dim  eye 
seeks  the  faces  of  those  he  loves.  The  last  faint  whis- 
per of  the  failing  voice  is  a  murmur  of  blessing  on 
those  dear  ones.  Love  is  stronger  than  death :  will  it 
not  survive  the  grave  ? 

''  Yes,  when  I  open  my  eyes  on  a  new  world  I  expect 
to  come  once  more  into  the  company  of  those  who  have 
been  my  inspiration,  my  comfort,  my  joy,  in  this  life. 
I  shall  learn  what  these  years  have  been  teaching  them, 
and  they  will  again  be  my  friendly  companions  and 
helpers.  I  shall  see  again  the  parents  and  the  dear 
children  whose  love  has  sweetened  my  life.  I  shall  be 
a  little  child  once  more  myself.  And  I  hope  to  come 
very  near  to  my  Master,  Jesus,  and  to  have  my  errors 
corrected,  and  be  taught  the  alphabet  of  a  higher  lan- 
guage of  truth.  Not  all  at  once  ;  for  the  laws  of  grada- 
tion and  limitation  will  probably  apply  there  as  here. 
But  if  faith  and  hope  and  love  abide,  then  there  will 
be  always  more  of  knowledge,  more  of  work,  and  more 
of  love  in  the  divine  beyond." 

"Soft  as  an  infant's  sleep  shall  be  the  coming  of 
death  to  you  and  to  me.  Sweet  shall  be  the  rest  which 
falls  on  the  soul  weary  with  work  and  the  body  ex- 
hausted by  years.  Tenderly  shall  the  death -cloud 
envelop  us,  and  hide  all  familiar  things  from  our  fail- 
ing sight.  And  when  we  awake  again,  with  no  abrupt 
transition,  with  no  astonishment,  we  shall  find  our- 
selves gently  led  into  new  being,  in  the  midst  of  old 
and  new  friends.     We  shall  be  in  the  presence  of  a 


414  DIABY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 

more  divine  beauty  than  that  of  this  earth,  and  with 
faculties  opening  into  greater  power  to  meet  the  new 
knowledge  and  the  new  work  of  that  next  w^orld,  that 
vast  beyond." 

PROTECTING  SHADOWS. 

I  sit  beneath  the  elm's  protecting  shadow, 

Whose  graceful  form 

Shelters  from  sunshine  warm  ; 
While  far  around  rae,  in  the  heated  meadow, 

The  busy  insects  swarm. 
Better  than  any  roof  these  softly  swaying  leaves. 
Opening  and  closing  to  the  passing  air, 
Which  from  afar  the  fragrant  breath  receives 

Of  forest  odors  rare. 

And,  as  the  branches  sway, 
Revealing  depths  on  depths  of  heavenly  blue, 
The  tempered  rays  of  sunshine,  glancing  through 
In  flickering  spots  of  light,  around  me  play ; 
While  little  birds  dart  through  the  mazy  web, 

With  happy  chirp  and  song, 

Fearing  no  wrong. 
To  their  half -hidden  nests  above  my  head. 
Thus,  without  motion,  without  speech  or  sound, 
I  rest,  —  a  part  of  all  this  life  around. 

Beneath  the  shadow  of  the  Great  Protection 

The  soul  sits,  hushed  and  calm. 
Bathed  in  the  peace  of  that  divine  affection. 
No  fever-heats  of  life,  or  dull  dejection 

Can  work  the  spirit  harm. 

Diviner  heavens  above 

Look  down  on  it  in  love. 
And,  as  the  varying  winds  move  where  they  will, 
In  whispers  soft,  through  trackless  fields  of  air, 
So  comes  the  Spirit's  breath,  serene  and  still. 
Its  tender  messages  of  love  to  bear 
From  men  of  every  race  and  speech  and  zone, 

Making  the  whole  world  one  ; 
Till  every  sword  shall  to  a  sickle  bend. 
And  the  long,  weary  strifes  of  earth  shall  end. 


THE  END.  415 

Be  happy  then,  my  heart, 

That  thou  in  all  hast  part,  — 
In  all  these  outward  gifts  of  time  and  sense, 
In  all  the  spirit's  nobler  influence, 

In  sun  and  snow  and  storm  ; 
In  the  vast  life  which  flows  through  sea  and  sky, 
Through  every  changing  form 
Whose  beauty  soon  must  die  ; 
In  the  things  seen,  which  ever  pass  away ; 
In  things  unseen,  which  shall  forever  stay  ; 

In  the  Eternal  Love 

That  lifts  the  soul  above 
All  earthly  passion,  grief,  remorse,  and  care 

Which  low-er  life  must  bear. 

Be  happy  now  and  ever, 
Since  from  the  Love  divine  no  power  the  soul  shall  sever : 

For  not  our  feeble  nor  our  stormy  past. 

Nor  shadows  from  the  future  backward  cast ; 
Not  all  the  gulfs  of  evil  far  below, 
Nor  mountain-peaks  of  good  which  soar  on  high 

Into  the  unstained  sky, 
Nor  any  power  the  universe  can  know ; 
Not  the  vast  laws  to  whose  control  are  given 
The  blades  of  grass  just  springing  from  the  sod, 
And  stars  within  the  unsounded  depths  of  heaven,  — 
Can  touch  the  spirit  hid  with  Christ  in  God. 
For  nought  that  he  has  made,  below,  above. 

Can  part  us  from  his  love. 

April  4,  1888. 


WRITINGS  OF  JAMES  FREEMAN  CLARKE. 

BOOKS. 

Theodore  ;  or,  The  Skeptic's  Conversion.  Translated  from 
the  German  of  De  Wette.     Boston,  1841. 

Service  Book.  For  the  Church  of  the  Disciples.  Boston, 
1844. 

History  of  the  Campaign  of  1812,  and  Defence  of  Gen.  Wil- 
liam Hull  for  the  Surrender  of  Detroit.     Boston,  1848. 

Eleven  Weeks  in  Europe.     Boston,  1852. 

Memoirs  of  Margaret  Fuller,  written  in  connection  with  W. 
H.  Channing  and  R.  W.  Emerson.     Boston,  1852. 

Christian  Doctrine  of  Forgiveness  of  Sin.     Boston,  1852. 

Christian  Doctrine  of  Prayer.     Boston,  1854. 

Karl  Hase  :  Life  of  Jesus.     Boston,  1860. 

The  Hour  which  Cometh.  A  volume  of  sermons.  Boston, 
1864. 

Orthodoxy  :  its  Truths  and  Errors.     Boston,  1866. 

Steps  of  Belief.     Boston,  1870. 

Ten  Great  Religions.     [Part  L]     Boston,  1871. 

Exotics.     A  collection  of  tr^islations  in  verse.     Boston,  1876. 

Go  up  Higher  ;  or  Religion  in  Common  Life.     Boston,  1877. 

Essentials  and  Non-Esseutials  in  Religion.     Boston,  1878. 

How  to  find  the  Stars.     Boston,  1878. 

Memorial  and  Biographical  Sketches.     Boston,  1878. 

Common-Sense  in  Religion.     Boston,  1874. 

Events  and  Epochs  in  Religious  History.     Boston,  1881. 

The  Legend  of  Thomas  Didymus,  the  Jewish  Skeptic.  Bos- 
ton, 1881. 

Self-Culture.     Boston,  1882. 

Ten  Great  Religions.     Part  II.     Boston,  1883. 

The  Ideas  of  the  Apostle  Paul.     Boston,  1884. 

Anti-Slavery  Days.     New  York,  1884. 

Manual  of  Unitarian  Belief.     Boston,  1884. 

The  Problem  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.     Boston,  1886. 


WHITINGS  OF  JAMES  FREEMAN  CLARKE.    417 

Vexed  Questions  in  Theology.     Boston,  188G. 
Every-Day  Religion.     Boston,  188G. 
Sermons  on  the  Lord's  Prayer.     London,  1888. 
Deacon  Herbert's  Bible-Class.     Boston,  1890. 


MAGAZINE    ARTICLES, 

The  Christian  Examiner.  —  Robert  Hall,  1833.  The  Pil- 
grim Fathers,  1843.  Fourierism,  1844.  History  of  the  Doc- 
trine of  the  Atonement,  1845.  Joan  of  Are,  1848.^  Brownson's 
Argument  for  the  Roman  Church,  1850.  Furness's  History  of 
Jesus,  1850.  The  Christian  Review  on  Original  Sin,  1852. 
Natural  Depravity  and  Total  Depravity,  1852.  Polemics  and 
Irenics,  1854.  H.  J.  Huidekoper  :  A  Memorial  Sketch,  1854. 
Adams's  South  Side  View  of  Slavery,  1855.  James  on  tlie 
Nature  of  Evil,  1855.  The  Progressive  Friends,  185G.  Presi- 
dent Lord's  Defence  of  Slavery,  185G.  Comparative  Theology 
of  Heathen  Religions,  1857.  Bishop  Hopkins  on  Slavery,  1857. 
The  Revival  of  1858,  1858.  The  Free  Colored  People  of  the 
United  States,  1859.  The  War,  18G1.  Buckle's  History  of 
Civilization,  1861.  Henry  James  on  Creation,  1863.  Military 
Drill  in  Schools,  1864.  The  Two  Carlyles  ;  or,  Carlyle,  past  and 
present,  1864.  Open  Questions  in  Theology,  1866.  Bushnell 
on  Vicarious  Sacrifice,  1866.  The  Fourth  Gospel  and  its  Author, 
1868.  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau,  1868.  Are  there  Two  Religious 
in  the  New  Testament  ?  1869. 

The  Atlantic  Monthly.  —  Adventure  with  Junius  Brutus 
Booth,  September,  1861.  A  New  Chapter  of  Christian  Evi- 
dences, March,  1869.  Brahmanism,  May,  1869.  Buddhism, 
June,  1869.  Zoroaster,  August,  1869.  Confucius  and  the 
Chinese,  September,  1869.  Mohammed,  November,  18G9. 
Have  Animals  Souls?  October,  1874.  Barton's  Life  of  Vol- 
taire, August,  1881. 

The  North  American  Review.  —  Western  History,  1836. 
Hall's  Statistics  of  the  West,  1837.  Wilson's  Rise  and  Fall  of 
the  Slave  Power  in  America,  1875.  Harriet  oNLartineau,  1877. 
Law  and  Design  in  Nature,  1879.  Rational  Sunday  Observance, 
1880.  Did  Shakspeare  write  Bacon's  Works  ?  1881.  Aftini- 
ties  of  Buddhism  and  Christianity,  1883.  Why  I  am  not  a 
Free  Religionist,  1887. 

Old  and  New.  — The  Perfection  of  Jesus,  1870.     George 


418    WRITINGS  OF  JAMES  FREEMAN  CLARKE. 

D.    Prentice,    and    Kentucky    Thirty -five    Years    ago,    1870. 
Wanted  —  a  Statesman,  1870.     Kenan's  Paul,  1870. 


ADDRESSES,    SERMONS,    AND    ARTICLES    IN    PAMPHLET    FORM. 

Letter  to  Unitarian  Society  in  Louisville.  Reform  and  Con- 
servatism. Slavery  in  the  United  States.  The  Pilgrim  Fathers. 
Character  of  Greorge  Keats.  Protest  against  Slavery,  signed  by 
Unitarian  Ministers.  Principles  and  Methods  of  the  Church  of 
the  Disciples.  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Poem.  Story  of  a  Converted 
Skeptic.  Charge  at  Ordination  of  T.  W.  Higginson.  Dilemma 
of  Orthodoxy.  An  Important  Question.  The  Church  :  as  it 
was,  as  it  is,  as  it  ought  to  be.  Discourse  at  Dedication  of  Free- 
man Place  Chapel.  James  Freeman.  Rendition  of  Burns. 
Polemics  and  Irenics.  Jesus  Christ  the  True  Corner-Stone. 
False  Witnesses  answered.  The  Unitarian  Reform.  Theodore 
Parker  and  his  Theology.  Causes  and  Consequences  of  the 
Affair  at  Harper's  Ferry.  A  Look  at  the  Life  of  Theodore 
Parker.  Secession,  Concession,  or  Self-Possession  —  Which  ? 
Christ  and  his  Anti-Christs.  Two  Ways  in  Religion  reviewed. 
Aspects  of  the  War.  The  Word  in  the  Beginning  with  God. 
Address  at  the  Tercentenary  of  Shakspeare.  Is  Evil  Eternal  ? 
Alfraham  Lincoln.  Address  to  Agricultural  Society.  The  Du- 
ties of  Massachusetts  (election  sermon).  On  giving  Names 
to  Towns  and  Streets.  Dedication  of  West  Roxbury  Soldiers' 
Monument.  A  True  Theology  the  Basis  of  Human  Progress. 
Peter  at  Antioch.  Fourth  of  July  Oration.  One  God,  the 
Father.  The  New  Theology.  Materialism  and  Atheism. 
Work  of  Unitarianism  in  the  Past,  Present,  and  Future. 
Coffee  Houses  and  Coffee  Palaces.  Channing  :  Address  at 
Dedication  of  Memorial  Window  at  Newport.  R.  W.  Emerson. 
Unitarian  Belief  and  Fellowship.  Five  Points  of  Calvinism 
and  Five  Points  of  the  New  Theology.  Sin  against  the  Holy 
Ghost.  Introduction  to  the  Gospel  of  John.  Old  and  New 
Ideas  concerning  the  Divinity  of  Jesus.  Is  Probation  or  Edu- 
cation the  End  of  Life  ?  The  Sabbath,  Sunday,  or  Lord's  Day 
—  Which  ?  Old  and  New  Views  concerning  the  Bible.  The 
True  Coming  of  Christ.  Agnosticism  vs.  Positivism.  The  Her- 
cules and  Wagoner  of  To-day.  The  Scientific  Basis  of  Prayer. 
The  Meaning  and  Value  of  the  Lord's  Supper  at  this  time. 
Some  Reasons  for  believing  in   a   Future    Life.     The   Mutual 


WRITINGS  OF  JAMES  FREEMAN  CLARKE.    419 

Oblio^ations  of  Science  and  Religion.  From  Faith  to  Faith.  A 
Happy  New  Year.  The  Ministry  of  the  Letter  and  the  Ministry 
of  the  Spirit.  Melchizedek  and  his  Moral.  The  Wrath  of  the 
Lamb.  Rejoice  Evermore.  Dorothea  L.  Dix.  Anarchy  and 
Law.  Temperance  Efforts  and  Temperance  Methods.  The 
Pew  System  and  the  Free-Seat  System.  The  Mind  of  Christ. 
What  God  gives  He  gives  Forever.  The  Broad  Church.  Clirist 
and  other  Masters.  The  Old  and  New  View  of  the  Hereafter. 
Lost  Opportunities.  Be  not  Weary  in  Well-doing.  Homes  in 
Heaven  and  on  Earth.  The  Joys  of  Christmas.  How  to  get 
the  Most  out  of  the  Coming  Year.  I  make  All  Things  New.  Man 
doth  not  live  by  Bread  alone.  What  do  Unitarians  believe  about 
God  ?  about  Jesus  Christ  ?  about  Sin  and  Salvation  ?  about  the 
Holy  Ghost  ?  about  Heaven  and  Hell  ?  about  Conversion  and 
Regeneration  ?  about  Divine  Providence  and  Human  Freedom  ? 
in  regard  to  the  Supernatural  Element  in  Christianity  ?  in 
regard  to  Vicarious  Sacrifice  ?  The  True  Doctrine  of  Liberal 
Christianity.  The  Brotherhood  of  Man.  The  Atonement.  The 
Bible.  Why  am  I  a  Unitarian  ?  Orthodox  Views  of  the  Atone- 
ment. Inspiration  of  the  New  Testament.  Revivals.  Has  Uni- 
tarianism  done  its  W  ork  ?  Church-going  :  Past,  Present,  and 
Future. 

Note.  —  No  attempt  has  been  made  to  give  a  list  of  Mr. 
Clarke's  articles  in  the  "  Western  Messenger,"  the  "  Monthly 
Journal,"  the  "  Christian  World,"  the  "Christian  Inquirer,"  and 
the  "  Christian  Register." 


INDEX. 


Abbott,  Jacob,  72,  108. 

Abington,  234. 

Abolitionists,  220,  222,  223. 

Acland,  Dr.,  309. 

Adams,  John  Qiiincy,  122,  233,  248,  277. 

Adams,  Nehemiah,  229,  347. 

Adams,  Samuel,  237. 

Agassiz,  Professor,  1G3,  1G5,  329. 

Agassiz,  A.,  352. 

Alaska,  351. 

Alcott,  Bronson,  138,  188. 

Alcott,  Miss,  138. 

Aldrich,  Thomas  Bailey,  358. 

AUston,  Washington,  143. 

Alps,  The,  177,  17S,  181. 

"  American  Citizen,  The,"  230. 

"  American  Churclies  Bulwarks  of  Am- 
erican Slavery,"  230. 

"  American  First  Class  Book,"  33. 

"American  Slavery,  as  it  is,"  215. 

Amory  Hall,  159. 

Amory,  William,  381. 

Andrew,  John  Albion,  6,  141  ;  proposes 
a  contribution  for  defense  of  John 
Brown,  205 ;  extracts  from  birthday 
address,  209,  210,  211 ;  writes  against 
war  witli  Mexico,  227  ;  saying  in  praise 
of  John  Brown,  230 ;  governor  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, 268,  2G9 ;  indignant  at  in- 
justice to  colored  troops,  244,  289 ; 
connection  with  Church  of  the  Disci- 
ples, 269 ;  call  on  the  President,  280 
death  of,  330,  386. 

Andrew,  Mrs.  John  A.,  275,  279. 

Antinomian,  An,  74. 

Antioch  College,  261. 

"  Anti-Slavery  Days,"  214,  218,  221,232 
245,  248-250. 

Anti-slavery  leaders    and    woman    suf 
frage,  324.  I 

Anti-slavery  opinion,  growth  of,  226. 

Anti-Slavery  Society,  248-250. 

Antwerp,  182,  183. 

April  19,  1801,  271. 

"  Arithmetic,  First  Lessons  in,"  31,  32 

Arnold,  Mitthew,  371. 

Ashurst,  Colonel  and  Mrs.,  285. 

"Atlantic  Monthly,  The,"  357. 

August  1st,  234. 

Augustus,  John,  148. 


Autobiography,  1-80;  81,  83,  84,  95,  dG, 

135,  164,  292,  345,  360,  365,  379. 
Autumnal  Convention,  263. 

Bacon,  Mr.,  133. 

Bailey,  Gamaliel,  232,  276,  277. 

Baltimore,  271. 

Banks,  Governor,  228. 

Barber,  Prof.  H.  H.,  384. 

Barnard,  161.  , 

Barrett,  Hepzibah,  2. 

Barrett,  Samuel,  156. 

Bartol,  Cyrus  A.,  122,  156. 

Basel  or  BrUe.  181,  374. 

Beaufort,  S.  C,  347. 

Beecher,  Dr.  Lyman,  94. 

Beethoven's  symphonies,  140. 

Bellows,  Henry  W.,  86 ;  editor  of 
"Christian  Inquirer,"  150,  227;  let- 
ter to,  169;  letter  from,  to  J.  F.  C, 
183  ;  met  at  Antioch,  261  ;  at  Mead- 
ville,  262;  herculean  labors  of,  263; 
founder  of  Sanitary  Commission,  269. 

Bentley,  Dr.,  87. 

Berne,  181. 

"  Bible  against  Slavery,"  222. 

Bible-class,  159,  162. 

Bigotry,  40. 

Biographies  of  ministers.  136. 

Birney,  James  G.,  217,  220,  224,  230. 

Bond,  George  W.,  207. 

Bond,  Henry  lilay,  288. 

Bond,  Rebecca,  337. 

Boston,  137,  138,  140,  335;  aawoiation 
of  ministers,  163 ;  churches  in,  144, 
151 ;  coldness  about  slavery,  154. 

"Boston  Courier,"  235. 

Boston  Latin  School,  26,  28,  83,  396; 
Public  Librarv,  3<)4.  399,  409. 

Botumc,  Miss,  347,  34S. 

B.utwell,  George  S..  289,  292. 

Bowditch,  Dr.,  193. 

Bowdoin  College,  294. 

Bowdoin  prize  dissertation,  85,  86. 

Bradford,  G.  P.,  358. 

Bradley,  Dr.,  370,  371. 

Breckenridge,  General,  100,  224. 

Breckenridge,  Jnhn,  76. 

Briggs,  Charles,  9i".. 

Briggs,  George  W.,  156,  157. 


422 


INDEX. 


Bright,  John,  371. 

Bribbaue,  Mr.,  138. 

British  and  Foreign  Unitarian  Associa- 
tion, 359. 

Brook  Farm,  139,  247,  273,  328,  329. 

Brooke,  Stopford,  371. 

Brooks,  Preston,  171. 

Brosowski,  106. 

Brown,  Jolm,  205,  206,  237  ;  famous 
song  on,  279. 

Brown,  Sir  Thomas,  39. 

Brown,  William  W.,  172. 

Browning,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  195. 

Browning,  Robert,  370. 

Buckingham,  Joseph  T.,  235. 

Buckminster,  Martha,  3. 

Biickminsters  of  Framingham,  3. 

Burns,  Anthony,  228,  233. 

Burr,  Aaron,  120. 

Burritt,  Elihu,  172. 

Bush,  S.  W.,  315,  403. 

Bushnell,  Dr.  Horace,  330. 

Cabot,  Dr.  Samuel,  and  Mrs.,  6,  194. 

Call,  Dr.  Emma  L.,  366. 

Call,  Mr.,  330. 

Calthorp,  Mr.,  259. 

Cambridge  Divinity  School,  88,  89,  213, 
214,  252,  297,  330. 

Caual-boat  travel,  59. 

Cape  Ann,  355. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  115,  120,  121,  125,  127, 
377. 

Carpenter,  Prof.  J.  Estlin,  369,  371. 

Carpenter,  Dr.  William  B.,  369,  371. 

Carter,  Artemas,  261. 

Chad  wick,  J.  W.,  314. 

Chaffin,  William  L.,  401. 

Chandler,  Mr.,  268. 

Change  in  church  life,  146. 

Channing,  Prof.  Edward,  45. 

Channiug,  George  G-.,  150,  159,  227. 

Channing,  Dr.  William  Ellery,  87  ;  let- 
ters of,  114,  118;  intercourse  with, 
122,  123;  description  of,  124,  142; 
counsel  and  sympathy  of,  142,  156, 
157,  159-161  ;  guiding  influence  of, 
213  ;  extracts  from  "  Slavery,"  218, 
219  ;  his  letters  quoted,  221-223  ;  de- 
sires more  spiritual  life,  252. 

Channing,  William  Henry,  description 
of,  in  youth,  35,  36 ;  classmate  and 
friend  of  Mr.  Clarke,  46,  86,  141 ; 
letters  to,  101,  102,  107  ;  connection 
with  "  Western  Messenger,"  125- 
127,  223 ;  ordination  of,  129,  130 ; 
eloquence  of,  140, 141 ;  writes  in  "  Life 
of  Margaret  Fuller,"  141,  142,  188; 
prayer  at  Church  of  the  Disciples, 
187  ;  art  criticism,  262 ;  preaches  in 
Washington,  275 ;  visit  to  canips  in 
Virsfinia,  278  ;  letters  from,  377,  379  ; 
a  life-lone  friend,  353,  371,  380;  fu- 
neral of,  361. 

Chapman,  George,  50,  67,  96. 

Cliase,  Salmon  P.,  232,  276,  277,  289. 

Cheever,  Dr.,  409, 

Chicago,  64,  135. 


Children's  Aid  Society,  148. 

"  Christian  Examiner,"  206,  229,  230, 
241,  336. 

"  Christian  Inquirer,"  150,  169, 170, 184, 
227,  228. 

"  Christian  Register,"  150,  246,  315, 
409. 

"  Christian  World,"  163,  227. 

Christians,  practical  agreement  of,  256. 

Church,  elements  of  a,  168;  an  ideal, 
252,  253  ;  principles  embodied  in,  158, 
160,  161. 

Church  of  the  Disciples,  146;  name, 
146,  147  ;  without  a  choir,  147 ;  fun- 
damental principle,  147,  148  ;  Wednes- 
day evening  meetings,  148 ;  a  free 
church,  149 ;  first  service,  149 ;  in- 
crease of,  150 ;  not  representative  of 
locality,  151 ;  withdrawal  from,  152 ; 
friendly  relations,  152  ;  organization, 
160  ;  social  meetings,  164, 165 ;  dedica- 
tion of  chapel,  167  ;  sale  of  building, 
187 ;  meeting  in  1851,  193  ;  reestab- 
lished, 201 ;  cordial  social  life  of,  202, 
203  ;  Dr.  Holmes's  description  of,  203, 
204 ;  a  missionary  church,  205 ;  new 
building,  211 ;  protest  against  war 
with  Mexico,  227  ;  work  for  freed  peo- 
ple, 245;  activity  and  devotion  of, 
257  ;  Governor  Andrew,  an  earnest 
member  of,  269 ;  members  of,  in  the 
army,  270  ;  a  favorite  hynm,  273 ;  two 
classes  of  hearers,  309,  310 ;  its  Sun- 
day-school, 314  ;  meetings  on  charities 
of  Boston,  338,  339  ;  a  birthday  meet- 
ing at,  353,  354  ;  Sunday  services  at, 
363,  365. 

Cincinnati,  115,  231. 

Clarke,  Abraham,  64,  333,  355,  386. 

Clarke,  Mr.  A.  F.,  162. 

Clarke,  Barnabqs.  2. 

Clarke,  Cora,  337,  350,  383. 

Clarke,  Dr.  E.  H.,  3->S. 

Clarke,  Eliot,  329,  333,  367,  384. 

Clarke,  Hepzibah,  2. 

Clarke,  Herman,  165,  169,  179,  194,  337, 
338. 

Clarke,  Mrs.  J.  F.,  132,  188,  194,  347, 
350,  375. 

Clarke,  James  Freeman,  Autobiography, 
1-80  ;  81,  83,  84,  95,  96  ;  home  in  bo'y- 
hood,  14,  22,  82,  83;  education,  16- 
18,  83  ;  reading,  19-21  ;  Boston  Latin 
School,  26,  30  ;  college  life,  34,  36, 
41,  42,  44,  84,  85;  painful  expe- 
rience, 45  -  47  ;  reasons  for  going 
West,  50  ;  first  sermon,  51 ;  memories 
of  travel,  51,  55-59;  overturns,  52- 
54;  Niagara,  60;  Trenton  Falls,  63; 
Chicago,  64;  Louisville,  66,  68;  ex- 
tempore sermons,  69,  70:  homesick- 
ness, 71  ;  important  question,  72  ;  re- 
ligions books  read,  72  ;  sermons  writ- 
ten, 73  ;  evening  meetings,  73  ;  inter- 
est in  a  certain  phase  of  belief,  74,  75  ; 
school-boy  lines,  84;  Bowdoin  prize 
essay,  85 ;  judicial  temperament,  86, 
92 ;  early  friendships,  86,  90  ;  at  Cam- 


INDEX. 


423 


bridge  Divinity  School,  88  -  90  ;  read- 
ing Goethe,  90,  91 ;  a  poet,  91  ;  Puri- 
tan dramas  planned,  91,  92;  text  of 
Beiuion,  9'^ ;  prayer,  93 ;  paper  on 
Robert  Hall,  93;  at  Louisville,  95- 
99;  "Western  Messengei-,"  97,  1(J8, 
109,  115,  124-12G ;  sermon  on  dueling, 
98,  2'25  ;  ordination,  99  ;  admiration  of 
the  West,  103, 104, 109  ;  books  planned, 
102,  105 ;  interest  in  Poles,  105,  100, 
108;  studies,  10(5, 108;  sermon  preached 
on  steamboat,  110,  111  ;  objects  seen, 
113;  at  Mobile,  113,  114;  Kentuclcy 
History,  115;  letter  to  Carlyle,  115; 
in  Cincinnati,  115,  129,  130;  Sunday- 
school,  118  ;  discourse  on  temperance, 
118  ;  a  long  journey,  120  ;  at  a  child's 
funeral,  122 ;  meeting  witli  J.  Q.  Ad- 
ams, 122  ;  love  of  work,  125 ;  admi- 
ration of  Emerson,  124 ;  deliglit  in 
preaching,  128,  133 ;  agent  of  public 
schools,  131, 132  ;  various  occupations, 
131 ;  marriage,  132 ;  leaving  Louis- 
ville, 132,  135 ;  Meadville,  132,  135, 
136;  route  to  Meadville,  13G ;  life  in 
Boston,  137 ;  interest  in  all  move- 
ments, 139 ;  friendship  with  W.  H. 
Channing,  141 ;  position  on  slavery 
question,  141 ;  respect  for  Wendell 
Phillips,  141  ;  description  of  Margaret 
Fuller's  "Conversations,"  142;  at 
Dr.  Channing's,  142  ;  repartee,  144  ; 
not  a  proselyter,  145  ;  modest  opinion 
of  his  own  importance,  146  ;  compiler 
of  hymn-book,  147  ;  idea  of  a  free 
church,  149,  155,  156;  memoranda, 
149,  150  ;  regular  duties  as  minister, 
150 ;  contributor  to  weekly  papers, 
150  ;  exchange  with  Theodore  Parker, 
152,  255;  friendly  relations  with  se- 
ceders,  152 ;  baptisms  by  immersion, 
153  ;  director  of  Unitarian  Association, 
153  ;  chaplain  of  Mass.  Senate,  153  ; 
fearless  discussion  of  slavery  question, 
154;  vindication  of  Gen.  Hull,  155; 
project  of  a  new  church,  155-157; 
first  service,  157  ;  discourses,  158,  159  ; 
organizing,  158,  160,  161  :  interference 
to  protect  a  horse,  159 ;  journals, 
161-163  ;  interest  in  prisoners,  163  ; 
in  Free-Soil  movement,  163  ;  contrib- 
utes to  the  "  Christian  World,"  163  ; 
questions  before  Boston  association  of 
ministers,  163  ;  his  children,  165  ;  lec- 
ture on  Joan  of  Arc,  165  ;  biograpliical 
discourses,  166 ;  poem  before  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  Society,  166;  seashore  enjoy- 
ment, 166 ;  a  row  on  Concord  River, 
166  ;  sermon  at  dedication  of  Freeman 
Place  Chapel,  167  ;  plan  of  lectures  on 
reforms,  167,  168;  diary,  167,  168; 
death  of  his  son,  169  ;  a  summer  in 
Europe,  171  ;  delegate  to  the  Peace 
Congress,  171  -  173,  17(> ;  three  tilings 
he  wished  to  see,  171  ;  rules  for 
seeing  works  of  art,  172  ;  incident  of 
Sahsbury  spire,  173,  174,  176;  passion 
for  high  elevations,  174, 177,  181, 375 ; 


life  on  board  ship,  174  ;  lines  written 
in  tlie  mizzeii-top,  174;  excurbionH 
111  England  and  Wales,  175;  West- 
minster Abbey,  175  ;  Salisbury  Plain, 
like  an  lUiuuis  prairie,  170  ;  Stone- 
henge,  176  ;  Alps,  first  view  of,  177 ; 
Strasbourg  minster,  177  ;  ascent  of  the 
Rhigi,  177  ;  thunder-storm,  177  ;  walk 
round  tlie  Jungfrau,  178  ;  emotion  in 
httle  church  in  Untersee,  179  ;  awent 
of  the  Gemmi,  179;  view  of  Mont 
Blanc,  180;  down  the  Rliine  to  Ci>- 
logne,  181  ;  at  Berne,  iKl  ;  in  old 
church  at  Basel,  181,  lf>2  ;  love  for 
crypts,  182 ;  day  at  Heidelberg,  182  ; 
in  Antwerp,  182,  lb=3  ;  ciiaracteristic 
landing  at  Long  Wharf,  Bu.'-tun,  183  ; 
"The  House  that  Jack  built,"  Ks4  ; 
a  long  illness,  186,  187  ;  gap  in  min- 
isterial life  in  Boston,  187  ;  lact  ser- 
vice in  the  Churcli  of  the  DiHciples, 
187  ;  severe  disappointment,  1S7  ;  at 
Meadville,  188,  190,  191,  VM,  197; 
journeys,  1S8,  lb9,  194  ;  Memoir  of 
Margaret  Fuller,  188,  189  ;  preacliing, 
189,  192  ;  publications,  189,  191,  206; 
life  with  his  children,  191  ;  liis  pleas- 
ant study,  191 ;  intercourse  with  theo- 
logical students,  191,  192;  abhorrence 
of  slavery,  192  ;  at  Niagara  Falls,  193  ; 
visit  to  Boston,  193;  second  trij)  to 
Europe,  195  ;  a  winter  in  Italy,  195 ; 
lines  on  the  "  Riviera  di  Ponente," 
195-197;  tie  with  the  Church  of 
the  Disciples  unbroken,  197  ;  message 
from  Nice,  198-200  ;  renewal  of  Bos- 
ton   pastorate,  201;    Sunday-school, 

201,  202;  social  meeting,  importance 
of,   202 ;   interest  of,  how  preserved, 

202,  203;  views  of  church  member- 
ship, 205 ;  a  missionary,  205 ;  corre- 
spondence, 206  ;  question  of  permanent 
home,  206,  207  ;  purchase  of  Brook 
Farm,  207  ;  house  at  Jamaica  Plain, 
207,  208  ;  trees,  207, 208 ;  fiftieth  birth- 
day, 209  -  211  ;  a  citizen  of  Ken- 
tucky, 214  ;  anti-slavery  lessons  from 
slaveholders,  214 ;  visits  to  slave- 
holding  friends,  217  ;  opposition  to 
slavery,  218 ;  attitude  as  editor  of 
"  Western  Messenger,"  218,  219,  223, 

224  ;  judgment  of    slavery,  220,  224, 

225  ;  opinion  of  Abolitioni.sts  unfa- 
vorable, 222  ;  not  advocate  of  iiiiim-di- 
ate  emancipation,  222,  223  ;  writings 
against  slaverv,  22(J  -  2'29  ;  review  of 
Dr.  Lord,  230;  of  Bishop  Hopkins, 
231  ;  interest  in  colored  people,  231, 
232,  243,  244  ;  discourse  on  rendition 
of  "Xnthonv  Burns,  233  ;  speech.  Aug. 
1st,  234,  235;  is  censured,  2.'>5;  hor- 
mons  against  slaverv,  2.S6  ;  liigli  ewti- 
mate  of  John  Brown,  23<'. ;  address  on 
eve  of  Lincoln's  election,  2:^s  ;  speoch 
in  Tremont  Temple  in  1861.  239- 
241  ;  sermon  on  the  state  of  tin-  na- 
tion, 242  ;  pamphlet  entitled  "  Sorev 
Bion,"  etc.,  242,270;  sermon  ou  the 


424 


INDEX. 


"  Plagues  of  Egypt  and  America," 
243  ;  in  Hall  of  Representatives,  Wash- 
ington, 244,  245 ;  address  at  dedica- 
tion of  soldiers'  monument,  240  ;  ad- 
miration of  President  Lincoln,  247  ; 
letter  to  Garrison,  248 ;  not  fully 
identified  with  Anti  -  Slavery  Society, 
249  ;  social  nature,  251  ;  ideal  church, 
252  ;  how  received  by  Boston  minis- 
ters, 252 ;  speech  at  annual  meeting 
of  Unitarian  Association,  252  ;  hope  on 
returning  from  Louisville,  253  ;  books 
and  sermons  widely  read,  254  ;  divi- 
sion line  in  work,  255;  publications, 
256  ;  qualifications  as  mediator,  250  ; 
member  of  Unitarian  Association,  257, 
258  ;writer  in  "  Monthly  Journal,"  259; 
"Western  tours,  259,  200  ;  opinion  of  co- 
education, 261 ;  address  at  autumnal 
convention,  263  ;  convention  sermon, 
264-267  ;  lectures  in  Music  Hall,  267  ; 
intimacy  with  Gov.  Andrew,  268,  269  ; 
member  of  sanitary  commission  dur- 
ing the  war,  269,  270  ;  extracts  from 
diary,  271,  273,  275,  284,  285  ;  April 
19,  1861,  271  ;  sermon  after  attack 
on  Fort  Sumter,  271,  272  ;  hopefulness 
after  Bull  Run,  272 ;  address  at  fu- 
neral of  William  Lowell  Putnam,  274 ; 
visit  to  Washington,  275-281,  289  ;  in 
Virginian  camps,  279  -  281 ;  extracts 
from  sermons,  281-283,  291,  320-322  ; 
at  contraband  camp,  285 ;  at  Gettys- 
burg, 280,  287  ;  of  sanitary  relief  corps, 
290  ;  interest  in  public  education,  292 
professor  in  Divinity  School,  Cam- 
bridge, 292, 293,  297, 298  ;  an  overseer 
of  Harvard  College,  293  ;  a  loyal  child 
of  the  university,  294 ;  plans  for  im- 
provement of  Divinity  School,  295  ; 
reports  to  board  of  overseers,  290,  297  ; 
lectures,  299  ;  report  on  study  of  mod- 
ern languages,  300,  301  ;  on  the  study 
of  Greek,  301 ;  admission  of  women 
to  Harvard,  302  ;  resolutions  on  con- 
ferring degrees,  303,  304  ;  interest  in 
astronomy,  304,  305  ;  trustee  of  Bos- 
ton Public  Library,  304  ;  a  "  perfect  " 
teacher,  305;  book  called  "Self-Cul- 
ture," 305  ;  acquaintance  with  French 
and  German,  306  ;  use  of  pencil,  306  ; 
speech  at  Commencement  dinner, 
306,  307  ;  extempore  speaking,  308  ; 
sermons,  308  -  31 1 ;  habits  at  print- 
ing-office, 311,  312  ;  incident  related 
in  "  Self  -  Culture,"  312;  preach- 
ing described  by  Margaret  Fuller, 
313;  by  John  A.  Andrew,  313;  by 
young  graduate,  314  ;  incident  at  Al- 
bany, 315 ;  tribute  from  S.  W.  Bush, 
315 ;  from  Thomas  L.  Eliot,  316;  charge 
at  an  ordination,  316,  317  ;  address  at 
Divinity  School,  318;  extract  from  the 
"  Monthly  Journal,"  218;  varied  ac- 
tivities, 323,  328,  320,  350,  366  ;  inter- 
est in  woman  suffrage,  324-326,  328, 
330,  337 ;  dealing  with  vexed  ques- 
tions, 326, 327  ;  election  sermon,  330  ; 


misses  Gov.  Andrew  every  day,  330 ; 
trip  to  the  West,  331 ;  notice  of  an 
eclipse,  331,  332  ;  gunning,  333 ;  fish- 
ing, 334 ;  extracts  from  diary,  333, 
334  ;  series  of  discourses,  335  ;  a  sa- 
cred anniversary,  337  ;  before  com- 
mittee at  the  State  House,  338  ;  sad- 
ness at  death  of  Don,  339 ;  Louisville 
visits,  340  ;  memories  of  the  past,  341  ; 
college  class,  345 ;  text  of  first  ser- 
mon, 346  ;  creed  in  four  words,  346 ; 
journey  to  the  South,  347  ;  visit  to  Old 
Fort  plantation,  347  ;  sermon  on  St. 
Helena  island,  349  ;  publications,  353, 
360,  363  ;  seventieth  birthday,  353, 
354  ;  love  for  the  seashore,  354,  355  ; 
lectures  at  Lowell  Institute,  356,  359, 
308  ;  lectures  and  classes,  357  ;  visits 
to  "Atlantic  Monthly"  office,  358; 
member  of  Examiner  Club,  358  ;  con- 
tributor to  Thursday  club,  359 ;  visit 
to  Europe,  359 ;  parish  work,  359- 
361  ;  interest  in  civil  service  reform, 
360,  361 ;  at  funeral  of  Wm.  H.  Chan- 
ning,  361 ;  seventy  -  fifth  birthday, 
302,  381  ;  address  on  life  of  Dr.  Free- 
man, 302 ;  paper  before  Congress  of 
churches,  302  ;  home  at  Magnolia,  302, 
364  ;  plans  for  work,  363  ;  correspond- 
ence 304,  305  ;  at  conference  in  Phil- 
adelphia, 364  ;  sermons,  365,  366  ;  an 
accident,  300 ;  his  grandchildren,  307, 
379,  380,  384 ;  diaries  in  England, 
309,  370  ;  people  met  in  Oxford  and 
London,  309  -  371  ;  preachers  heard, 
371,  372;  curiosities  seen,  372,  373; 
House  of  Commons,  373  ;  churches  of 
Paris,  373  ;  Switzerland,  374  ;  Holland, 
375 ;  visit  to  Nazing,  375 ;  praise  of 
John  Eliot,  370 ;  letters  destroyed, 
378  ;  a  great  sorrow,  379 ;  on  death  of 
Wm.  G.  Eliot,  382  ;  life  at  Magnolia, 
384,  385  ;  method  of  taking  altibudes, 
387  ;  his  faith  in  God,  389 ;  faith  in 
man,  390;  a  "truth -teller,"  391; 
characteristics,  391,  392,  411 ;  descrip- 
tion of  himself,  393,  394;  no  fixed 
habits,  393,  394 ;  unity  in  his  charac- 
ter, 395,  390  ;  first  appearance  at  Latin 
School,  390 ;  fearlessness,  390  ;  sym- 
pathy with  children,  396,  397,  403  ;  in- 
cident at  Lowell,  397,  398  ;  skill  in 
presiding,  398  ;  a  visit  to  Boston  Pub- 
lic Library,  399 ;  interest  in  young 
men  entering  the  ministi-y,  400  ;  wel- 
comed in  social  circles,  401 ;  talk  at  a 
ball,  401 ;  his  home-life,  402 ;  a  good 
listener,  402  ;  a  picture  in  study  at 
Meadville,  402 ;  an  ideal  traveling 
companion,  403  ;  an  interesting  story- 
teller, 404  ;  at  Niagara,  404  ;  his  mem- 
ory, 404,  405  ;  other  traits,  405,  406  ; 
a  comforter,  406 ;  six  weeks  in  New 
Jersey,  408,  409  ;  article  on  revised 
version  of  New  Testament,  409 ; 
preaches  for  the  last  time,  409  ;  scene 
at  annual  social  festival,  410 ;  trust  in 
a  reunion  hereafter,  410 ;  "he 


INDEX. 


425 


to  breathe,"  410 ;  on  death,  412,  413  ; 

"  Protecting  Shadows,"  414,  415. 
Clarke,  Lilian,  194,  285,  344,  3G9,  402. 
Clarke,    Rebecca    Parker   [Hull],   G-8, 

10. 
Clarke,  Samuel,  2,  3. 
Clarke,  Dr.  Samuel,  5,  6,  8,  9,  81,  82. 
Clarke,  Samuel  C,  or  "Sam,"  10,  82, 

84,  329,  331,  333. 
Clarke,  Thomas,  mate  of  the  Mayflower, 

2. 
Clarke,  William,  G4,  334. 
Clay,  Cassius  M.,  223,  224. 
Clay,  Henry,  80,  239,  277. 
Clerical  manners  in  the  West,  103. 
Clergymen's  lives  difficult  to  describe, 

130. 
Cleveland,  Grover,  3G1. 
Cobbe,  Frances  Power,  371. 
Cobdeu,  172,  170. 
Colburn,  Warren,  31,  32. 
Coleridge,  39,  45,  87. 
College,  years  in,  a  preparation  for  life, 

43. 
•'Collegian,  The,"  35. 
Colonization  Society,  219,  221. 
Colored  people,  condition  of,  231,  232. 
Colored  troops,  244,  289. 
Compromises  of  1850,  276. 
Conant,  A.  H.,  102,  203,  380. 
Concord,  166. 
Congregational    church,    11 ;    minister, 

13 ;  churches,  255. 
Congregationalism,  theory  of,  145. 
Congress  of  churches,  302. 
Constant,  Benjamin,  139. 
Conventions,  138. 
Coolidge,  J.  I.  T.,  257. 
Coolidge,  Jefferson,  384. 
Coolidge,  Joseph,  5. 
Coolidge,  Joseph,  Jr.,  5. 
Copeland,  Morris,  247. 
Copy  of  Coleridge,  Shelley,  and  Keats, 

329. 
Coquerel,  Athanase,  172,  176. 
Cotton,  influence  of,  on  slavery,  154. 
Cotton,  John,  88. 
Cranch,  C.  P.,  126. 
Cranch,  Edward,  130. 
Cromwell,  Oliver,  372,  373. 
Cromwell,  Richard,  372. 
Cruft,  S.  B.,  366. 
Crypts,  182. 

Curious  literary  deception,  33. 
Curtis,  Anna,  4. 

Curtis,  Benjamin  Robbins,  34,  35,  46. 
Curtis,  Charles  Pelham,  5. 
Curtis,  James  Freeman,  5. 
Curtis,  Martha,  3,  4. 
Curtis,  Obadiah,  3,  4. 
Curtis,  Sarah,  or  "  Sally,"  4,  14,  21. 
Curtis,  Thomas,  4. 
Curtis,  Thomas  Buckminster,  5. 
Curtis,  William,  emigrant  from  Nazing, 

3-5,  375. 

Dalton,  Professor,  282. 
Daniel,  Book  of,  139. 


Dante,  349. 

Daviess,  Joseph  Hamilton,  80,  99. 
Davis,  George  T.,  30,  39. 
Davis,  Jefferson,  352. 
Day,  J.  W.,381. 
Deguerry,  the  Abbt?,  172. 
Dennie,  William,  3. 
Detroit,  surrender  of,  by  Hull,  83. 
Devens,  Charles,  10. 
De  Wette,  Dr.,  181. 
Dewey,  Orville,  109. 
"  Dial,  The,"  143. 

Dictionaries,  superstition  of,  17,  29. 
Divinity  School,  Cambridge,  bti  ;  of  Uni- 
tarian Churcli,  293. 
Dix,  Dorotliea,  383. 
Dixwell,  Epes  S.,  83. 
"  Doctrine  of  Prayer,"  256. 
Don,  339. 
Drake,  Dr.,  130. 
Dred  Scott  case,  228. 
Dueling,  98,  101,  225. 
Duncan,  Garnet,  32. 
Dwight,  Dr.,  294. 

Eclipse  described,  331,  332. 
Edgeworth,  Maria,  stories  of,  IS,  19. 
Education,  Board  of,  292. 
"Elegy    in    a    Country    Churchyard," 

Eliot,  John,  3,  25,  375,  376. 

Eliot,  Samuel  A.,  140. 

EHot,  Thomas  L.,  310. 

Eliot,  William  G.,  86,  95,  129,  130,  251, 
203  ;  letters  to,  104,  336,  367,  308,  378, 
381. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  22,  84,  86,  89  ; 
conversation  with,  85;  letters  to,  ll.'i, 
120,  121,  124,  128 ;  letters  from.  123, 
120;  praise  of,  124;  poems,  124,  12"); 
remark  of,  133;  a  lecturer,  140;  writ- 
er in  "  Life  of  Margaret  Fuller,"  142, 
188  ;  frequenter  of  foreign  bookstore, 
143  ;  religious  speculations  of,  32S  ; 
member  of  Examiner  Club,  358;  fu- 
neral of,  359;  correspondence  with 
Carlyle,  377. 

Epping  Forest,  375. 

Erasmus,  bust  of,  182. 

Espy,  Professor,  13,^>. 

"  Essentials  and  Non-Essentials  in  Re- 
ligion," 207. 

European  tour,  the  effects  of,  186. 

Everett,  Edward,  271. 

Examiner  Club,  330,  344,  358. 

Faith,  104. 

Farley,  Frederick  A.,  129,  130,  161. 
Farrar,  Canon  F.  W.,  371. 
Farrar,  John,  37. 
Female  medical  school,  303. 
Fields,  James  T.,  .VA  .^-)7,  358. 
Fields,  Mrs.  Janies  T.,  384, 
Finney,  Dr.,  2.'')0. 
First  sermon,  1,  51,  93. 
First  twenty  years,  1. 
Flag,  "the  cultus"  of,  at  a  Virginia 
camp,  281. 


426 


INDEX. 


Florence,  139. 

Follen,  Dr.  Charles,  43,  214. 

Foote,  Henry  W.,  353,  365,  384,  385, 
409. 

Foreign  bookstore,  frequenters  of,  143. 

Fourth,  The,  121,  122. 

Fowle,  William  B.,  33. 

Fraser,  Sir  William,  372. 

Free-Soil  party,  163,  206,  276. 

Freeman,  Rev.  James,  3,  4  ;  excellence 
as  a  teacher,  16-18,  83,  387  ;  house  of, 
22,  25;  of  King's  Chapel,  81,  82,  213, 
362. 

Freeman,  Martha  [Curtis],  4,  13. 

Freeman  Place  Chapel,  166,  167,  188, 
194. 

Freiburg  minster,  177. 

Fresh  Pond,  45. 

Fruitlands,  138. 

Fugitive  slave  law,  227,  228,  276. 

Fuller,  Margaret,  71,  125,  313 ;  letters 
to,  99,  100,  105,  107-110;  life  of,  writ- 
ten, 91,  141,  188,  189 ;  classes  for  con- 
versation, 142,  143. 

Furness,  Dr.,  337.  364,  408. 

Furness,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  109. 

Gannett,  Dr.  E.  S.,  157,  158,  161,  163, 

2G3. 
Garden  pleasures,  14,  15. 
Gardner,  Governor,  228. 
Garibaldi,  371. 
Garrison,  William  Lloyd,  220,  221,  247, 

248. 
Gemmi  Pass,  the,  179. 
German  books,  87.  > 

Gettysburg,  286,  287. 
Ghost  story,  a,  7. 
Giddings,  Joshua,  232,  276,. 
Gill,  Thomas  H.,  371. 
Girardin,  Emile  de,  172. 
Gladstone,  373. 
Goddard,  Francis  E.,  32,  96. 
Goddard,  Mr.,  358. 
Goodwin,  Simeon  S.,  66,  67. 
Gospels,  the  four,  88. 
Gould,  Benjamin  A.,  31,  83. 
Gray,  Frederick  T.,  122,  149,  257. 
Greene,  Colonel  William  B.,  279. 
Greene,  Mrs.  William  B.,  287. 
Greene,  William.  130. 
Greene,  Mrs.,  130. 
Greenwood,  F.  W.  P.,  389. 
Grimes,  Mr.,  6. 
Guyandotte  route,  the,  57,  96. 
Gymnastics,  43,  44,  85,  174. 

Hale,   Edward  Everett,   138,   302,  336, 

358. 
Hale,  Ellen,  369. 
Hale,  John  P.,  232,  276. 
Hall,  Nathaniel,  261. 
Hampstead,  369. 
Harvard  club,  362;  college,  34,41,84; 

emulation  the  motive  appealed  to,  37, 

40-42  ;  boards  of,  294,  306. 
Haweis,  Mr.,  371. 
Hawthorne,  Mrs.  [Peabody],  143. 


Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  143,  166. 

Hayden,  Lewis,  193. 

Hedge,   Frederick   Henry,  86,   91,  120, 

142,  143,  1G9,  387. 
Heidelberg,  182. 
Hemenway,  Mrs.,  384. 
Hemp,  field  of,  77. 
"  Herald  of  Health,"  393. 
Herbert,  George,  198. 
Henry,  Patrick,  237. 
Heywood,  Mr..  340,  341. 
Higginson,  Francis,  373. 
Higginson,  T.  Wentworth,  308,  324. 
Hill,  Miss  Octavia,  371. 
Hillard,  George  Stillman,  84. 
Hillard,  Mrs.  G.  S.,341. 
Hills,  influence  of,  22. 
Hilton  Head,  348,  349. 
Hinckley,  Mr.,  337. 
Holidays,  234. 
Holland,  375. 
Holley,  Horace,  67,  94,  95. 
Hollis  Street  Church,  263. 
Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  35,  84,  203,  273, 

353,  358. 
Home  for  aged  colored  women,  148. 
Home,  temporary,  for  children,  148. 
Homer,  Anna  [Curtis],  4. 
Homer,  Dr.  Jonathan,  12,  13. 
Hooper,  Samuel,  285. 
Hopedale,  139. 

Hopkins,  Bishop  John  H.,  229-231. 
Horses  in  Kentucky,  52. 
Hosea,  Mr.,  261. 
Hosmer,  Dr.,  261,  262. 
Houston,  Samuel,  276. 
Howe,  Colonel,  275. 
Howe,  Mrs.  Julia  Ward,  337,  353. 
Hubbard,  Gurdon,  64. 
Huidekoper,  Anna,  132. 
Huidekoper,  Henry,  285. 
Huidekoper,  Mr.,  95,  190,  375. 
Hull,  Abraham,  24. 
Hull,  General  William,  83 ;  hospitality 

of,  22,  23  ;  vindication  of,  155. 
Hunt,  Mr.,  394. 

Huntington,  Frederick  D.,  257. 
Hutton,  Dr.,  175. 

"Ideal  church,"  252. 

Indiana-Place  Chapel,  211. 

Indians,  "western  Orientalists,"  110. 

Infidel,  so  called,  77,  117. 

Inspiration,   literal,   of  Old  Testament, 

74,  75,  77. 
Irwin,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  109. 
Italy,  195. 

Jackson,  Francis,  239. 
Jackson,  Dr.  James,  194. 
James,  Henry,  358. 
Jameson,  Mrs.,  127. 
Jefferson,  Thomas,  215. 
Joan  of  Arc,  165,  166,  356. 
Jowett,  Dr.,  370. 
Julian,  232,  276. 
Jungfrau,  177,  178. 


INDEX. 


427 


Kansas,  203. 

Keats,  George,  107,  121. 

Keats,  John,  107,  329. 

Kemble,  Fanny,  109. 

Kentuckians,  79,  98,  99,  103,  121. 

Kentucky,   52,  78,  79,   94,  95,  98,  103, 

132  ;  forests,  100,  121 ;  slavery  in,  214, 

218,  219,  224. 
"Kentucky  History,"  115. 
Kettle  Island,  355. 

"  Key  to  '  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,'  '♦  215 
King,  Clarence,  344. 
King,  Starr,  257. 
King's  Chapel,  81,  82,  362. 
Kiuzie,  Mr.,  64. 

Kirk,  Edward  N.,  153,  253,  254. 
Knapp,  263. 
Kossuth,  194. 

Laboratory,  25. 

"  Lady  of  the  Lake,"  15, 16. 

Lake  Leman,  181. 

Lakes,  the,  64,  65 ;  Zug  and  Lucerne, 

177. 
Lancaster,  405. 
Lane,  Mr.,  138. 
Latin  Grammar,  16,  29,  30. 
Latin  School,  26,  28,  396. 
Latter-day  Saints,  139. 
Lawrence,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Edwin,  385. 
Lay  preaching,  162. 
Lesley,  Mr.,  109,  337. 

Margaret  Fuller,  99,  100,  105,  107- 

110.  115. 
W.  H'.  Channing,  101,  102,  107,  116, 

117. 
W.  G.  Eliot,  104,  336,  367,  368,  378, 

381 
G.  T.'d.,  108,  120. 
H.  T.  D.,  Ill,  112. 
Editor  ^'  Western  Messenger,"  111. 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  G.  T.  D.,  119. 
R.  W.  Emerson,  120,  124,  128. 
A.  H.,  121,  123,  125,  126,  128,  129, 

131. 
A.  H.  C,  133,   156,  175,    193,   290, 

330,  333,  337,  340,  368. 
His  sister,  155,  211,  288,  335,  337- 

339,  341,  343,  344,   3«-352,   376, 

379,  382-387. 
S.  S.  C,  165,  185,  328,  355. 
H.  W.  Bellows,  169,  184. 
Mrs.  A.  F.  C,  193. 
Church  of  the  Disciples,  198-200. 
T.  W.  Higginson,  208. 
E.  E.  Hale,  262,  297,  303,  336,  338, 

351. 
N.  Augustus  Staples,  284. 
E.  C.  C,  289. 
Professor  in  a   theological    school, 

A  young  minister,  319. 
His  daughter,  329,  408. 
L.  F.  C,  331. 
Mrs.  G.  S.  Hillard,  341. 
H.  W.  Bellows,  342. 
Samuel  May,  345. 


J.  T.  Fields,  350. 

Rev.  John  Cordner,  377. 

Rev.  J.  W.  Day,  381. 

Rev.  J.  H.  Allen,  380. 

S.  C.  C,  382. 

F.  H.  Hedge,  387. 
Lexington,  Ky.,  94,  109. 
Ley den,  375. 

Lieber,  Dr.  Francis,  61-63. 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  78,  218,  238, 243,  247, 

275,  277,  284,  341,  342. 
Lind,  Jenny,  193. 
Livingstone,  David,  390. 
Locke,  John,  philosophy  of,  39,  89. 
Lombard,  Mr.,  352. 
London,  89,  369. 
Longworth,  Mr.,  130. 
Lord,  Nathan,  229,  230. 
Loring,  Caleb,  4. 
Loring,  Charles  G.,  328. 
Loring,  Edward  G.,  228. 
Loring,  Mrs.  Ellis  Gray,  284. 
Louisville,  66,  68,  94,  98,  100 ;  a  lady  of, 
75,  76 ;  life  at,  96  ;   Unitarian  Society 
at,  96,  97,  133 ;  visits,  340. 
"  Louisville  Journal,"  218. 
Lovejoy,  Elijah  P.,  222. 
Lowellj  James  Russell,  367. 
Lowell,  John,  Jr.,  130. 
Lowell  Lectures,  368. 
Lucerne,  Lake  of,  178,  374. 
Lundy's  Lane,  24. 

Mackintosh,  Sir  James,  178. 

Macy,  General,  329. 

Maffitt,  109. 

Magnolia,  355,  362, 

Mammoth  Cave,  189,  190,  300. 

Mangasarian,  Mr.,  364. 

Manliness,  true  and  false,  45. 

Mann,  Horace,  10,  48,  232,  233,  261, 276, 
283. 

Mann,  Mrs.  Horace  [Peabody],  10, 143. 

Marblehead  men,  278. 

Marsh,  Professor,  39. 

Mar.shall,  Mrs.,  216. 

Martineau,  Harriet,  109. 

Martineau,  James,  372. 

Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  373. 

Massacluisetts  Anti-Slavery  Society,  235. 

Massachusetts  Fourteenth  Regiment, 
279-281. 

Massachusetts  Woman  Suffrage  Associ- 
ation, 249. 

May,  Joseph,  364. 

May,  Samuel,  213  ;  letter  to,  345. 

May,  S.  J.,  156. 

Mayo,  A.  i).,  399. 

McDuffie,  Governor,  216. 

Meadville,  132,  135,  136,  250,  2G1,  26'2, 
293,  402. 

Meetings  for  discourse,  73,  74. 

Melbourne,  383. 

"  Memorial  History  of  Boston,"  200. 

Mexico,  war  with,  227. 

Mickiewitz,  Casimir,  105,  107. 

Miller,  William,  139. 

Milwaukee,  383. 


428 


INDEX. 


Mineralogy,  106. 

Mississippi  River,  110. 

Mobile,  112-114. 

Money,  allowance  of,  24,  25. 

Mont  Blanc,  180. 

Montgomery,  Dick,  352. 

"  Monthly  Journal,"  263,  275,  336. 

Morgan,  288. 

Mormons,  139. 

Muir,  Sir  William  Hamilton,  370. 

Muller,  Max,  370. 

Mumford,  Thomas  J.,  189. 

Museum,  24. 

"  National  Anti-slavery  Standard,"  234, 
National      Conference      of      Unitarian 

Churches,  264. 
"National  Era,*'  276,  402. 
National  road  from  Wheeling,  Va.,  11, 

12,  379. 
Nazing,  375. 
Negro  flogging,  111. 
New  England,  50,  86,  87,  94,  97. 
New  England  Emigrant  Aid  Co.,  251. 
New  Jersey,  408. 
*'  New  York  Observer,"  163. 
♦'  New  York  Tribune,"  279. 
Newcastle  railroad,  100. 
Newton,  town  of,  11,  12,  379. 
Newton,  Stewart,  127. 
Niagara,  60,  61,  188,  189,  193,  404. 
Niebuhr,  Baron,  62. 
Nonantum,  25. 
North,    Anti- slavery   opinion    of    the, 

"  North  American  Review,"  248. 

Norton,  Andrews,  88. 

Norton,  David  W.,  289. 

"  Notes  on  the  State  of  Virginia,"  215. 

Novels,  21. 

Novelties,  147. 

Ogden,  William  B.,  64. 

Old  Corner  Bookstore,  358. 

Old  Manse,  166. 

Old  South  Church,  345. 

"  Oldtown  Folks,"  23. 

Oliphant,  Lady,  344. 

Oliphant,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Laurence,  344. 

Orthodoxy,  leaders  of,  253,  254. 

Osgood,  Samuel,  162, 169,  184,  227. 

Otis,  James,  237. 

Overseers  of  church,  147. 

Overseers,  Boards  of,  294,  306. 

Owen,  Robert,  138. 

Oxford,  369,  370. 

Oxford  movement.  The,  139. 

Paddock  elms,  345. 

Palfrey,  John  G.,  90,  141,  214,  233. 

Park,  John  C,  381. 

Parker,  Mr.,  310. 

Parker,  Theodore,  151, 152, 193,  227,  254, 

255,  259,  324,  37-1,  380. 
Parkman,  Francis,  96,  157,  161. 
Parnell,  373. 
Patterson,  Mr.,  65. 
Peabody,  Ephraim,  95,  161,  251,  257. 


Peabody,  Nathaniel,  daughters  of,  10; 

house  of,  143. 
Peace  Congress,  171-173,  176. 
Peers,  President,  102. 
Peirce,  Benjamin,  34. 
Pennsylvania  route,  96. 
Perkins,  James  H.,  36,  130,  169,  380. 
Petersburg,  289. 
Philadelphia,  337,  350,  364. 
Phillips,  John,  261. 
Phillips,  Jonathan,  223. 
Phillips,  Wendell,  84,  141. 
Phonograph,  352. 
Phrenology,  47-49. 
Pierpont,  John,  32,  96. 
Pillsbury,  Parker,  351. 
Pittsburg,  261,  262. 
Planters,  hospitality  of,  57,  58. 
Play,  18,  27. 

Poles  in  Louisville,  105-107. 
Popkin,  Dr.,  36,  37. 
Port  Royal,  278. 

Positive  Doctrines  of  Christianity,  168. 
Potomac,  279,  280. 

Prentice,  George  D.,  98,  99, 101, 135, 21& 
Prentiss,  103. 

Presbyterian  ministers,  95. 
Protestant  Episcopal  school,  139. 
Public  schools,  28. 
Putnam,  Dr.  Charles,  379. 
Putnam,  William  Lowell,  273. 

Quincy,  Josiah,  237. 

Railroad  lines,  96,  140. 

Rand,  Edward  S.,  10. 

Reading  room.  West  Street,  143, 144. 

Revelation,  Book  of  the,  139. 

Revised  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  362. 

"  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,"  143. 

Richards,  Laura  Howe,  381. 

"  Richmond  Examiner,"  216. 

Richmond,  fall  of,  290. 

Ripley,  George,  122,  133,  143,  156,  380. 

Ritchie,  Colonel,  275. 

"  Riviera  di  Ponente,"  195,  196. 

Rob  Roy,  344. 

Robbius,  Chandler,  102,  193. 

Rogers,  Henry  B.,  157,  290,  381. 

Rogers,  Professor,  358. 

Rowan,  John,  98,  99. 

Rubens,  pictures  by,  183. 

Sadler,  Dr.,  369. 

Salisbury  Cathedral  spire,  173. 

Salisbury  Plain,  176. 

Sanitary  Commission,  263,  269. 

Sargent,  John  Osborne,  30,  31,  156. 

"  Saturday  Evening  Gazette,"  310,  311, 

344. 
Savoy  Alps,  180. 
Schleiermacher,  63. 
School  prizes,  22. 
Schuylers,  the,  344. 
Scott,  General,  276. 
Scott's  poems,  15,  19 ;  and  novels,  19. 
Sectarianism,  254. 
Seligman,  Mr.,  370. 


INDEX. 


429 


Seward,  J.  L.,  397. 

Saward,  William  Henry,  232,  276,  277. 

Shaekford,  Mr.,  151. 

Shakespeare,  20. 

"Shark,"  13G. 

Simmons,  George  F.,  169,  223. 

Slade,  232. 

Slave  power,  The,  246,  277. 

Slavery  in  Kentucky,  78,  79,  98  ;  afTected 

by  cotton-growing,  154»;  Southern  ideas 

about,  210 ;  protest  against,  226. 
Smith,  Bishop,  102. 
Smith,  Goldwin,  370. 
Smitli,  Dr.  Nathan,  81. 
Social  experiments,  139. 
Socialism,  184,  185. 
Society,  redemption  of,  138. 
Sohier,  Edward  D.,  44,  45. 
Soldiers,  at  Washington,  278. 
Solms,  Prince  de,  251. 
"  South-side  View  of  Slavery,"  229,  347. 
Sparks,  Jared,  10. 
Spears,  R.,  385. 
Speed,  James,  218,  244. 
Speed,  John,  76-79,  217,  244,  391. 
Speed,  Joshua,  77,  78,  218,  341. 
Speed,    Mrs.    and    Martha,    Mary    and 

Eliza,  Philip  and  Emma,  340. 
Spurgeon,  372. 
Spurzheim,  Dr. ,  47,  48. 
St.  Gothard  road,  178. 
St.  Helena,  Island  of,  348,  349. 
St.  John,  Mr.,  130. 
St.  Paul,  102. 
Stage-coach  journeys  and  adventures, 

51-01,96;  drivers,  52,  53. 
Staples,  N.  Augustus,  262. 
Stedman,  Dr.,  408. 
Stetson,  Caleb,  226. 
Stetson,  Mrs.,  130. 
Stevens,  Thaddeus,  289. 
Stevenson,  J.  Thomas,  228. 
Stone,  Mrs.,  337. 
Stonehenge,  176. 
Stowe,   Harriet   Beecher,   23,   215,  247, 

330. 
Strasburg  minster,  177. 
Stump-speaking,  79,  80. 
Sumner,  Charles,  84,  141,  171,  233,  242, 

244,  289,  337,  344. 
Sumner,  S.  B.,  130. 
Swan,   Mrs.  Hepzibah  [Clarke],  2,  22, 

55. 
Swedenborgian  chapel,  150,  157. 
Sycamore,  68,  09. 

Taverns  in  the  We.st,  57. 

Taylor,  "  Father,"  156,  261,  262. 

"Ten  Great  Religions,"  295. 

Texas,  annexation  of,  153,  154. 

Text-books.  20,  21. 

Theology.  39,  40,  87. 

Thomas,  Benjamin  F.,  285. 

Thompson,  161. 

Thompson,  Dr.  Allen,  370. 

Thoreau,  Henry  D.,  188. 

Thursdiy  Lecture,  The,  255. 

Towne,  Miss  Laura,  348.  ' 


Towne,  Mrs.,  3S4. 

Translations,  use  of,  42. 

Travelling  in  1833,  51,  52. 

Trees,  in  Westerji  forests,  55:  hostility 

to,  09 ;  live  oaks,  347. 
Trenton  Falls,  03. 
Trotter,  Mr.,  101. 
Truths  and  erross  of  Orthodoxy,  256, 

Twitchell,  Mr.,  337.. 

"  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  189,  402. 

Unitarian    Association,    l.'iS,    2.''j7,   2f4 
207,  275 ;  church,  233,  25;i,  254,  2(.3 
doctrine,   50,  72;   leaders,    152,  252 
ministers,   220,  227  ;    puii)it,   change 
m,  257  ;  society,  in  Louisville,  90,  U7. 

Unitarian,  origin  of  word,  295. 

UnitarianLsm,  377. 

Unitarians,  205. 

Uri,  bay  of,  178. 

Vailly,  M.,  24. 
Vandyck,  183. 
Vane,  Sir  Henry,  409. 
Vaughan,  Mr.,  130. 
Terses,  123,  126,  127. 
Victor  Hugo,  172,  176. 
Vine  Street,  Boston,  84. 
Virgil,  31. 
Virginia,  279-281. 
Visits,  14,  25. 

Walker,  Amasa,  172. 

Walker,  Dr.  James,  37,  S6, 139, 140,  207, 

351. 
Waltham  Abbey,  376. 
Ward,  William,  253. 
Ware,  Darwin  E.,  311,  366. 
Ware,  Henry,  88,  214. 
Ware,  Henry,  Jr.,  89,  102,  214,  203. 
Warren  Street  Chapel,  102. 
Washington,  270-278. 
Washington,  George,  215. 
Washifiigton,  Smart,  story  of,  348. 
Waterston,  R.  C,  149,  150,  157,  257. 
Watts,  Mr.,  370. 
Webster,  Daniel,  210,  228. 
Weeden.  Mr. ,  342. 
Weld,  Tiieodore,  215. 
Wells,  Mrs.,  328. 
Wendte,  C.  W.,  298. 
Wesley,  John.  215. 
Wost,The,  103,  104. 
"Western    Mes.senger,   The."  97,   109, 

115,  124-120,  102,  218,  222,  223,  251^ 
378,  380. 
Westminster  Abbey,  371. 
Westminster  Confes.'^itm.  295. 
Westwood.  Professor.  370. 
Whipple,  Edwin  P.,  .'>5S. 
"  Wliitf-i-aiit  Waves,''  385. 
White  Mountain  Notch,  7. 
"White  Tracts,"  209. 
Whitman,  B.-rnard,  67,  96. 
Whitman,  Colonel,  341. 
Whitsunday.  2.33. 
Whittier,  John  G.,  221,  338. 


430 


INDEX. 


Wicksteed,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Philip,  371. 
Wilder,  Dr.,  135. 
Wilson,  Henry,  244,  248,  277. 
Winkley,  S.  H.,  257. 
Winslow,  B.  P.,  187. 
Winthrop,  John,  88. 
Winthrop,  Robert  Charles,  84. 
Woman  sufErage,  324-326,  330  ;  associa- 
tion, 337. 


Woman,  admission  of,  to  college,  302. 
WoodhuU,  Mrs.,  party  of,  326, 
World,  end  of,  prophesied,  139. 

Yale  College,  294. 
Yandell,  Dr.,  135. 

Zug,  lake  of,  177. 
Zurich,  university  of,  338. 


THE    WORKS  OF 
JAMES  FREEMAN  CLARKE,  D.D. 


Ten  Great  Religions.  Part  I.  An  Essay  in 
Comparative  Theology.  With  an  Index.  Crown  8vo, 
$2.00;  half  calf,  $3.25. 

Contents:  Ethnic  and  Catholic  Religions;  Confucius  and 
the  Chinese;  Brahmanism ;  Buddhism,  or  the  Protestantism 
of  the  East ;  Zoroaster  and  the  Zend  Avesta ;  The  Gods  of 
Egypt ;  The  Gods  of  Greece ;  The  Religion  of  Rome ;  The 
Teutonic  and  Scandinavian  Religion ;  The  Jewish  Religion ; 
Mohammed  and  Islam;  The  Ten  Religions  and  Christianity. 

Nothing  has  come  to  our  knowledge  which  furnishes  evi- 
dence of  such  voluminous  reading,  such  thorough  study  and 
research,  and  such  masterly  grasp  of  the  real  elements  of  these 
religions  as  does  the  volume  before  us.  James  Freeman 
Clarke  has  accomplished  a  work  here  of  solid  worth.  —  ^Tis- 
sionary  Review  (Princeton). 

Dr.  Clarke  has  here  given  us  an  outline  of  the  history  of 
each  of  the  religions  that  have  exerted  the  most  influence  in 
space  and  time.  ...  A  book  of  consummate  merit  and  sur- 
passing interest.  —  Christian  Register  (Boston). 

He  treats  the  ten  condemned  faiths  in  a  spirit  of  the  fuHest 
reverence,  anxious  to  bring  to  light  whatever  of  good  is  con- 
tained in  them.  —  The  Nation  (New  York). 

Ten  Great  Religions.     Part  II.     Comparison 

of   all   Religions.     Crown  8vo,  $2.00  ;  half  calf,  $3.25. 

The  two  Parts,  half  calf,  $6.50. 

Contents:  Introduction — Description  and  Classification; 
Special  Types  —  Variations ;  Origin  and  Development  of  all 
Religions;  The  Idea  of  God  in  all  Religions —  Animism, 
Polytheism,  Pantheism;  Idea  of  God  in  all  Religions,— 
Ditheism,  Tritheism,  and  Monotheism;  The  Soul  and  its 
Transmigrations,  in  all  Religions;  The  Origin  of  the  World, 
in  all  Religions  ;  Evolution,  Emanation  and  Creation ;  Prayer 
and  Worship  in  all  Religions;  Inspiration  and  Art  in  all  Re- 
ligions ;  Ethics  in  all  Religions  ;  Idea  of  a  Future  State  in  all 
Religions ;  The  Future  Religion  of  Mankind. 


WORKS  OF  JAMES  FREEMAN  CLARKE— {continued). 

The  last  few  years  have  done  much  to  throw  light  upon  the 
religions  of  the  world,  and  especially  those  of  the  East.  Of 
these  researches  the  author  has  availed  himself,  and  he  has 
given  the  world  a  book  unique  in  design  and  execution  ;  in  its 
attempt  to  trace  the  doctrines  we  have  named  through  all  re- 
ligions the  work  has  no  predecessor. —  The  Chtirchfnati  (New 
York). 

Common  Sense  in  Religion.     i2mo,  $2.00. 

Contents:  Common-Sense  and  Mystery,  Common-Sense 
View  of  Human  Nature;  On  the  Doctrine  Concerning  God; 
The  Bible  and  Inspiration  ;  The  True  Meaning  of  Evangelical 
Christianity  ;  The  Truth  about  Sin  :  Common-Sense  and  Scrip- 
ture views  of  Heaven  and  Hell;  Satan,  according  to  Common- 
Sense  and  the  Bible;  Concerning  the  Future  Life;  The  Na- 
ture of  Our  Condition  Hereafter;  Common-Sense  View  of  the 
Christian  Church;  Five  kinds  of  Piety ;  Jesus  a  Mediator;  The 
Expectations  and  Disappointments  of  Jesus ;  Common-Sense 
View  of  Salvation  by  Faith;  On  not  being  Afraid;  Hope; 
The  Patience  of  Hope;  Love;  The  Brotherhood  of  Men. 

Dr.  Clarke  has  much  to  say  which  commends  itself  to  our 
judgment  and  our  feelings.  There  is  a  certain  vigor  in  his 
thought,  and  an  absolute  clearness  in  his  style,  together  with 
an  evident  and  rugged  honesty  and  strength  of  conviction  un- 
derlying all,  which  make  him  an  impressive  teacher,  even  when 
we  cannot  bring  ourselves  to  accept  his  instructions.  —  The 
Congregationalist  (Boston). 

Events    and    Epochs   in    Religious    History. 
With  Maps  and  Illustrations.     12 mo,  $2.00  ;  half  calf, 

Contents:  The  Catacombs;  Buddhist  Monks;  Christian 
Monks  ;  Augustine,  Anselm,  Bernard  ;  Jeanne  d'Arc  ;  Savona- 
rola, Luther,  Loyola ;  The  Mystics ;  German  Pietists ;  F^ne- 
lon,  Swedenborg,  Emerson;  George  Fox;  Huguenots,  Wal- 
denses,  Albigenses ;  John  Wesley ;  Moravians  and  Methodists. 

It  contains  an  historical  account  of  some  of  the  most  strik- 
ing phases  of  religious  life  and  character,  chiefly,  but  not  ex- 
clusively Christian,  together  with  extended  critical  studies  of 
the  great  leaders  in  the  religious  movements  of  which  the  au- 
thor treats.  ...  He  has  gathered  a  great  amount  of  interest- 
ing material  from  the  various  sources  of  history  and  of  biog- 
raphy, and  has  presented  them  in  a  striking  light,  making  an 
eminently  readable  and  instructive  book.  —  New  York  Ob- 
server. 


IVORKS    OF  JAMES  FREEMAN  CLARKE —  (cotttinued). 

The  Ideas  of  the  Apostle  Paul.     Translated 

into  their  Modern  Equivalents.     i2mo,  $1.50. 

A  thoughtful  study  of  the  life,  character,  opinions,  and  influ- 
ence of  the  Apostle  Paul.  So  many  theological  doctrines  are 
based  upon  Paul's  Epistles,  or  buttressed  by  them,  that  a  care- 
ful examination  of  them  by  so  competent  and  candid  a  scholar 
as  Dr.  Clarke  is  peculiarly  welcome. 

A  work  on  this  subject  from  this  source  does  not  need  my 
commendation.  But  I  permit  myself  the  pleasure  of  expressing 
the  satisfaction  I  have  derived  from  its  catholicity  of  senti- 
ment and  its  deep  spirituahty.  —  Professor  C.  H.  Tov,  0/ Har- 
vard Divinity  School. 

Every-Day  Religion.     1 2mo,  g i  .50. 

Twenty-nine  Essays,  discussing,  with  the  simplicity,  wisdom, 
aftd  practical  good  sense  characteristic  of  Dr.  Clarke,  the  re- 
ligion of  daily  life  in  the  family,  the  neighborhood,  in  busi- 
ness, in  society,  in  politics.  It  is  a  thoroughly  wise  and  help- 
ful book. 

Thev  are  full  of  thoughts  that  are  as  pertinent  in  the  par- 
lor as  in  the  pew,  and  which  speak  as  fittingly  m  the  market- 
place as  at  the  altar;  and  this  is  accomplished,  not  by  brmgmg 
the  sanctuary  down  to  the  level  of  ^h^  world  but  by  bnngnn^^ 
the  world  up  to  the  level  of  the  sanctuary  If  the  tlioughts  a  e 
for  every  day  as  well  as  for  Sunday  it  is  because  the  preacr 
would  have  all  days  alike  made  holy  "  How  to  make  the 
most  of  life"  is  the  subject  of  the  first  discourse,  and  the  kc>- 
note  of  all.  —  Neiv  York  Tribune. 

Self -Culture.      Physical,    Intellectual,  Moral, 

and  Spiritual.     i2mo,  $1.50  ;  half  calf,  $3.00. 

Twenty-two  lectures,  discussing  with  admirable  breadth  and 
insight  the  methods  of  educating  the  powers  of  observation, 
reflection,  imagination,  conscience,  affection,  reverence  tern- 
per;  education  by  books,  amusements,  and  love  of  beaut),  and 
seeking  for  truth. 

"Self-Culture  is  written  from  the  standpoint  of  ^'^l^^ 
ideas  and  the  broadest  truth,    /t  bears  the jress  of ^^ 

scholarship,  and  yet  is  so  -'^P^^  !"  f  >i;,^,l:;a  ,  e  n.c-- 
ment  that  no  attentive  r^^^^j"  ^j^^^^  ,h^losX  of  life  is  sound 
ing  or  learn  the  lesson  intended.  Its  P^^>JP,^°P  >  ^  found 

and  its  spirit  such  as  all  men  approve.    The  uork  nmH 


IVORKS   OF  JAMES  FREEMAN  CLARKE  —{,concltided). 

in  the  best  sense  a  useful  handbook  for  parents,  teachers,  and 
the  thousands  of  young  persons  for  whom  it  was  prepared. 
And  in  speaking  thus,  we  could  hardly  give  stronger  utterance 
to  our  admiration  of  the  author's  practical  wisdom,  deftness, 
and  force  of  diction,  and  remarkably  clear  and  intelligible  ap- 
prehension of  the  problems  considered.  The  volume  will  prove 
a  godsend  to  multitudes  to  whom  it  will  open  a  hitherto  un- 
known path  to  education  and  true  culture.  —  Boston  Tran- 
script. 

Memorial  and  Biographical  Sketches.  Includ- 
ing Governor  Andrew,  Charles  Sumner,  Dr.  Channing, 
Theodore  Parker,  Dr.  Howe,  Dr.  Gannett,  Dr.  Susan 
Dimmock,  and  others.     i2mo,  $2.00. 

The  nineteen  essays,  articles,  sermons,  and  addresses  which 
make  up  this  volume  are  marked  by  the  sterling  qualities,  the 
common-sense,  manliness,  earnestness,  and  tenderness  which 
have  given  Dr.  Clarke  his  enviable  reputation  in  his  native  city 
and  State.  —  The  Natioti  (New  York). 

Exotics.  Poems  translated  from  the  French, 
German,  and  Italian,   by  J.  F.   C.  and  L.  C.     i8mo, 

$1.00. 

No  equally  varied  collection  of  the  minor  gems  of  German 
and  French  lyrical  poetry  has  hitherto  appeared  in  English ; 
and  ver}^  few  translations  of  equal  spirit  and  fidelity  have  ap- 
peared in  English  at  all.  —  Appleto7is'  Journal. 

The  "  Exotics  "  make  a  charming  collection,  and  touch  all 
moods  of  fancy,  thought,  and  love.  —  Boston  Advertiser. 

A  thoroughly  exquisite  book  without  and  within.  —  N'ew 
York  Christian  Advocate. 


*^*  For  sale  by  all  Bookseller's.     Sent,  post-paid,  on  receipt  of  price  by 
the  Publishers, 

HOUGHTON,    MIFFLIN   AND    COMPANY, 

4  PARK  ST.,  BOSTON;  ii  EAST  17 TH  ST.,  NEW  YORK. 


